Day 33 - Erwin, TN; Damascus, VA and Trail Days!!!

Since leaving Hot Springs, NC, I've been hiking with Rambo, and we've been aiming for Erwin, TN. That's where our good friend Hotspot offered to pick us up to bring us to Damascus, VA for Trail Days. Ever since he had to leave the trail because of an injured Achilles' tendon, he's been planning to meet back up with us at Trail Days. As much as I am sorry that he had to quit hiking, I am also enormously grateful that he could transport us yesterday. I'm writing now from the Damascus Old Mill Inn restaurant and bar, sitting beside the river with Hotspot (using his phone as a wireless hotspot) while Rambo is sitting with some other trail friends on the porch drinking beers.

Leaving Hot Springs was hard to do since it was such a great little town, and the ascent from there was daunting. I've heard of hikers who just stayed in Hot Springs and spent all their money and had to go off the trail. But there is much to see beyond there, and I sincerely hope to return there some day, so with that in mind, on Sunday afternoon, Rambo and I followed the A.T. down the sidewalk and over the French Broad River and up the steep slopes, headed north.

It immediately felt great to be back in the woods again, especially to be back with Rambo. His pace is faster than mine, but he mostly kept my pace or sometimes waited for me if he got too far ahead. We were trying to cover the 66 miles between Hot Springs and Erwin in three and a half days, to arrive by Thursday morning. Normally I can only do around 12 to 15 miles per day, and was planning to get there Thursday night, but we devised a plan: we would hike a half day on Wednesday, rest for eight hours Wednesday afternoon/evening, then night hike the rest of the way into Erwin by Thursday morning.

On Sunday we hiked until sundown and made it nearly to Allen gap, but stopped at a small campsite. That night I discovered that green lentils aren't a good trail dinner, even if they've been soaking all day. On Monday, the trail went over a long exposed ridge with stunning views of Tennessee to the west and North Carolina to the east. It was slow going over the rocks, though, and I stopped at Jerry's Cabin shelter at Chestnut Log Gap, even though we'd planned to go further. Rambo went on and camped at the next bald, and I met him in the morning. On Tuesday, we flew along the trail and made it all the way to TN highway 23, beneath which was a small parking area and a patch of grass, and trash cans. We "stealth camped" there (meaning, camped where there wasn't a campground). In the morning we left our tents up with our packs inside, and we hitched three miles down the road to Little Creek Cafe to fuel up on pancakes, bacon, and coffee. We hitched back in a severely beat-up pickup truck driven by a one-handed man who liked to gesticulate when he talked, which didn't actually help us understand anything he said anyway.

Wednesday we hiked a little over eight miles in the morning, over Big Bald with glorious 360' views under a clear dome of blue sky, and then around 2PM, just past Big Bald Shelter, we set up camp. The idea was to sleep until 11PM, then wake up and night hike 16 miles to town. I lay on top of my sleeping bag, on soft pine needles, watching the birds flit by and the sunlight slant lower and lower through the trees until dark, and then I watched the moon and stars. I didn't sleep, but it was very restful.

At 11PM, Rambo and I made "breakfast" and packed up. The moon set around midnight, and after that we hiked by headlamps alone. We couldn't tell the terrain until it was right beneath our feet, which brought a new meaning to the idea of being"in the moment." We later calculated our pace at around 1.7 miles per hour, which is slower than usual, but in the moment, we thought only about placing each foot, one after the other, as the terrain emerged before us. When we were high on ridges, the landscape below us appeared dark except for occasional houses or distant towns, like terrestrial stars. Down in gaps, we looked up through the trees at the clear night sky, and we could perceive looming peaks around us by the fact that they blocked the stars behind them. The night was mostly silent, with an occasional hoot of an owl, and the wind rustling the branches above us.

By dawn, we were beginning our descent into Erwin. "Descent" is a generous term for that stretch of trail. It must have been designed by a roller coaster engineer, and by that point, we were exhausted and hungry. Rambo powered ahead while I adopted a pace barely faster than a hobble, with both my knees protesting each step. At the bottom, we crossed the Nolichucky river and the train tracks, and we started waking on the road towards town. Within a mile, we got a hitch from a guy in a gutted minivan that reeked of cigarettes.

Breakfast at the Huddle House was the fast-food version of biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs and cheese piled on top, plus orange juice and plenty of coffee. I know it would probably have been better if it were home made, but I don't believe I could have enjoyed it any more than I did.

After breakfast, I passed out for about half an hour on the grass by the side of the road, but then Rambo woke me up and told me there was a laundromat four blocks away, so we hauled ourselves over there and washed everything we had and charged our phones while we waited for Hotspot, who was stuck in traffic coming down from Roanoke, VA.

I was so happy to see Hotspot!!! He drove up in a rented SUV, playing dance music and gangsta rap, and we caught up on everything from the past few weeks in the hour and a half drive to Damascus. He told us about his trip down to Key West to visit Lili, and we told him about all the people we'd been hiking with. When we got to Damascus, people were just setting up for the weekend.

Now, Damascus normally has a little over 1,000 residents. At trail days, it swells to over 20,000. Current hikers, past hikers, and friends and fans of the A.T. swarm in from everywhere, and they're met by gear companies, food and craft vendors, and church ministries offering the love of Jesus in the form of free showers, haircuts, and meals. Everyone camps in a field known as "tent city" or in the woods behind it.

It's just like a festival atmosphere (except with more Baptists). People set up camps with big tarps and fire pits and coolers full of beers. There's music and picnics and people smoking weed and hand rolled cigarettes. Today at 4:20PM there was a beer pong tournament in one of the camps.

I bought a super lightweight hammock and I'm camped with Rambo and Hotspot in the woods. I also had my boots sealed, my water filter replaced, and my trekking poles cleaned, all for free. I also had a free breakfast of cereal and toast and brownies. And I bought a new, lighter, waterproof packs that fits me better. Tonight I'm planning on joining my pals in the Princess Squad at a campfire. If it stops raining...

Yay!

Photos are: The hostel in Hot Springs; view from an old fire tower with no windows anymore; view of the colorful trees on the hillside; my dinner of quinoa with ramen and hot sauce; dawn over the mountains in Tennessee; the Nolichucky River; walking into Erwin past the train; walking around Damascus; our hammocks; me and my canine friend Dante, who gives hugs on command.