Day 39: Virginia!

April 15: Weather forecasts, I’ve quickly been learning, are notoriously inaccurate on the trail, and today was turning out to be no exception. This time, the forecasts from yesterday had predicted no rain today, but by morning, the rain was still going. I didn’t exactly rush out from the shelter hoping it might lift, but I didn’t want to linger too long either because I was due to meet Amanda later in the day in Damascus.

So I was the last person out of the shelter, but I hadn’t actually left very late. The Four Horsemen, rather, were rather anxious to get into town and were on the move remarkably early.

About an hour into my hike, the rain finally stopped and my smartphone started getting a signal, so I called Amanda to update her on my progress. She was already in the area and had staked out a road crossing hoping to intersect me, but alas, I had already passed the last road before Damascus. She had missed me! But we’d still meet up in Damascus like we originally planned.

Signs of spring are starting to show!

And finally, I reached it: the Virginia state line. Tennessee was now behind me. Three states done, eleven more to go.

I took the required photos, lots of selfies since nobody else was around to take photos. It was a good feeling, but not a particularly memorable one. I had done it before, after all! But I did wonder how it went for the Four Horsemen. I had told them about a story I heard that once there were three women hiking the trail together, and they’d cross each border completely topless. Which sounded like a splendid idea to me! But I’d never met the women and never saw any photos as evidence so as far as I know, it’s just wishful thinking by thru-hiking men everywhere. But what a great idea! =)

The Four Horsemen agreed—what a splendid idea!—and to help encourage it, they would start hiking across each border without their shirts on. I don’t have any problem with this idea, but I have my doubts that the idea will cross the gender barrier. But as I stood at the Virginia border, I did wonder if the last four people who passed by were shirtless in the rain and what an odd spectacle it must have been.

I later asked them if they did, in fact, cross the border shirtless, and they said they did—but they never sent me any photos as proof. I’m not sure I’d really want those photos, but if you have any photos of the three girls who allegedly were doing that, by all means, share them with me! I’ll study them closely to make sure they aren’t Photoshoped hacks and if I think they’re real, I’ll let you know!

The rest of the hike into Damascus was uneventful, and I found Amanda walking up the street towards me. She said she’d walked a whole half-mile on the trail through town and it wasn’t nearly as difficult or strenuous as I had made it out to be. Har har har. *shaking head*

Amanda and I decided to drive into Abingdon several miles away rather than stay in Damascus since there were more services available near the Interstate, and off we went.

I didn’t go topless across the Virginia border, but maybe if the weather were warmer I’d give it a whirl!

Colorful mushrooms on a snag

I really liked the mural on these restrooms in Damascus!

What a cute little train! Damascus used to be a railroad town and this is a nod to its past.

Damascus is also sometimes called “Trail Town, USA.” It’s a major trail town on the Appalachian Trail considering that the trail runs right through the middle of downtown Damascus, right up the sidewalks!

Day 38: A Shelter Built For Two

April 14: It sprinkled for most of the night and into the morning, and weather forecasts predicted rain all day. Because the weather wasn’t expected to improve, I left the shelter early. I’m pleased to report that the weather forecasts were dead wrong—the rain stopped after an hour or two and had I slept in late, I could have missed the rain completely.

As it was, though, hiking for an hour or two in the rain is still a huge improvement over walking through it all day long!

Near the end of the day, I passed what my guidebook called an “abandoned” shelter, which is hands down the smallest shelter of the trail. The tiny structure would be crowded with two people! Exciting stuff, eh? I didn’t stop there, however. I kept pushing on to the Abingon Gap Shelter for the night, quitting at a mere 2:30 in the afternoon.

Although it had stopped raining, it looked like the rain could start up again and I liked the idea of quitting early and avoiding that, and despite my early end to the day, I still covered 16 miles which was plenty respectable.

Later in the afternoon, the Four Horsemen arrived who I was happy to see. They’d certainly provide plenty of entertainment for the night! Also showing up for the night was a southbound hiker named Longhorn who had started hiking from Harpers Ferry and was absolutely ecstatic to finally be out of Virginia, whose border was just a couple of hours of hiking away. He described nights where temperatures weren’t merely below freezing, but well into the negatives and probably 30 degrees colder than my coldest nights in the Smokies. He dealt with a lot more snow than I did, and he told us that he didn’t think the ATC workers in Harpers Ferry really believed he was a thru-hiker because the weather was so cold and awful. Virginia, he told us, had not been easy, and he was positively ecstatic to finally be out of the state.

Trail magic! But it had largely been emptied by the time I arrived…

Lonestar had started the trail about a week or two before I did, but his experiences sounded vastly more difficult than mine. Just being further up north at that time of year made a big difference I guess.

Of course, we were excited to be going into it, and we weren’t expecting temperatures that would be in the negatives. Not that we had any major complaints about Tennessee, but progress is progress!

Later, I’d see more thru-hikers who had started in Harpers Ferry and were heading southbound. When they reach Springer Mountain, they plan to jump up to Katahdin and continue hiking south back to Harpers Ferry. I’m a little surprised at how many hikers I’ve met who are doing this, but it’s still a tiny fraction of all thru-hikers. He told us stories of what to expect in Virginia, and we told him about the trail he’d be seeing ahead—and even warning him about a couple of people behind us that he’d do well to avoid.

During the evening, the rain did finally start up again and I was happy to be in the shelter and out of the rain.

Nick Grindstaff Monument

At first I thought the monument was a chimney from a ruin, but it turns out, it’s a grave! At least I think it is…

I’m not sure what this strange structure is, but it didn’t look safe to go in!

This little shelter barely had space for two!

Day 37: Watauga Lake

April 13: The morning started partly cloudy and turned to mostly cloudy later in the afternoon, but the thing that really annoyed me was a long climb to the top of a mountain early in the morning where there were absolutely no views, just to descend again to Watauga Lake. A complete PUD (Pointless Up and Down), and a pretty big one at that. Why couldn’t the trail just contour around the mountain instead of charging directly over it?

Eventually I reached the Shook Branch Recreation Area along Watauga Lake. It was a nice place to stop and lunch, which I did. There had allegedly been flush toilets and everything at this location and I was itching it use one, but the doors to the restroom had been locked. Argh! I joked with the other hikers that we should have left a poop in front of the restroom doors to show our displeasure. You can lock the doors, but you can’t stop us from pooping!

Somewhat to my surprise, I met a fellow named Jax—Little Engine’s hiking partner who had missed the trail to the shelter the day before. He was waiting for Little Engine to catch up. I was surprised because Little Engine had left the shelter close to an hour before I did—as far I knew, she was ahead of me on the trail, which meant she was also head of Jax. I’m not sure how she could have gotten ahead of him without him knowing it, though, but those two seemed cursed and kept missing each other over and over again!

From this point, the next several miles of trail were closed to camping due to bear problems. Even the Watauga Lake Shelter had been closed to campers. This wasn’t an issue for me—they had posted signs warning of the closure long before we arrived and I had deliberately camped south of the closure and knew I could easily get past it and camp north of the closure. But I did keep my eyes open for bears—if there were bear problems in this area, I figured my chances of seeing a bear were better than average! But I saw no bears either. Disappointing, I know.

I arrived at the Iron Mountain Shelter after my longest day yet of hiking: 22.6 miles. Mere seconds after I arrived, the rain had started. Whew! When I arrived at the shelter, Mrs. Dash and Little Engine were already there, and Little Engine was wondering what had happened to Jax. I told her I last saw him at Watauga Lake earlier in the day and had no idea how they had passed each other without knowing it, but that’s what had happened. Jax eventually showed up about an hour later, soaking wet from the rain. I was sure glad I didn’t have to hike in the rain, but finally after over 24 hours apart, Little Engine and Jax had re-united.

And that was pretty much it to the day’s hiking. Not a lot to report, really!

Watauga Lake, far below! See the dam at the far end of the lake? The AT crosses it there.

The Shook Branch Recreation Area along the shores of Watauga Lake.

Watch out for the geese! They were hissing at me and not very friendly!

Spring is in the air!

Mrs. Dash on the shores of Watauga Lake.

Nearing the dam

And crossing the dam…

After leaving Watauga Lake, the trail climbed to a ridgetop which offered some nice views occasionally during the day. The ridgetop was relatively flat and easy to walk along which was my favorite part of it, although the climb up was sweaty! =)

The first May apples start sprouting on the trail.

Day 36: Laurel Falls

April 12: I was the first hiker to hit the trail in the morning, which meant I was the person breaking cobwebs that the spiders created across the trail during the night. They weren’t bad—I’ve suffered from worse!—but it was annoying.

Springer Mountain is now 406 miles away! I never did find another sign for Katahdin, though, which seemed unfair for Katahdin.

For the first half of the day, I felt like I had the entire trail to myself not seeing a single other person. It wasn’t until the afternoon when Mrs. Dash caught up with me, which normally isn’t a big deal, but he had just taken a week off the trail in Erwin for tendinitis or something and carried a 3-pound plastic boot that a doctor had recommended. It’s a little embarrassing when a crippled person can catch up and pass you! Well, maybe not that embarrassing, but it seems like it should have been. =)

We walked together for a half hour or so chatting about making our own gear. He was interested in sewing his own pack like I did and asked all sorts of questions about it, but after a half hour, I couldn’t keep up his pace anymore and let him wander off ahead. I’d hate to see how fast that man can walk if he had been at 100%!

As I approached Laurel Falls, the relatively lonely trail became packed full of day hikers. It seemed like there were hundreds of them on the trail, but that’s probably an exaggeration. They were definitely thick on the trail, however, and slowed my progress as I got caught behind some slowly heading down the trail with no easy way to pass them.

Laurel Falls is a nice waterfall and easy for one to watch all day long. I took a seat near it and read my Kindle, but I couldn’t read for more than about 20 minutes before the hoards of day hikers drove me away. I liked the location, but alas, so did everyone else and the kids running around and yelling made it difficult to read.

This waterfall is called “Hardcore Cascades.” Mrs. Dash and I both found that rather amusing since neither of us considered it particularly “hardcore.”

I continued onwards, skirting along the edge of Laurel Creek and nearly missing the turn to the Laurel Fork Shelter. I thought the shelter would be on the trail (my guidebook didn’t mention that it was off trail), and the sign for the shelter was about 10 feet high and facing in the wrong direction. If I hadn’t been stopping to take photos of every sign at every intersection, I probably would have missed it.

But, happily, I did not, and followed the blue-blazed trail a short way to the shelter and set up camp. I was the only person there. The water source for the shelter was a small waterfall a short ways behind the shelter—among the prettiest of water sources for a shelter. I set up camp and rested and relaxed wondering if perhaps I’d have the shelter to myself tonight. So far as I knew, everyone else was heading into one of the hostels the trail passed near earlier in the day.

I should have known better, though! Within a couple of more hours, seven (SEVEN!) more thru-hikers would show up including: Chanty, Salty, Little Engine and the Four Horsemen.

Little Engine had a hiking partner, Jax, who failed to show up. He was ahead of her and she was more than a little surprised to arrive and learn that Jax had not. He, evidently, had missed the turn for the shelter—which we all agreed was an easy thing to do, and especially so if you weren’t looking for one in the first place. We kept wondering if he would show up, having realized he missed the turn and backtrack. Little Engine wasn’t going to go on and try to find him, though. She’d already done 27 miles and was done for the day and looked exhausted. I felt so sorry for her, I even offered to walk over to the water source to fill up her water for her even though it wasn’t really that far or difficult to get to. (Actually, I was more likely to get it for her if it was quick and easy for me!)

Of the Four Horsemen, Blueberry and Bostrich showed up first, and they were also surprised to learn that Superman and Heavyweight weren’t already at the shelter since they had been ahead on the trail. Clearly, Superman and Heavyweight had also missed the trail to the shelter. A lot of people were missing the trail to the shelter! Three people so far—that we knew about! In theory, others could have missed the turn then just decided not to go to the shelter at all rather than backtrack to it.

Bostrich dropped his pack and raced down the trail in the hopes of catching Superman and Heavyweight before they went too far. They had gone into town to resupply and bought all of the makings for cooking hot dogs over the campfire. Bostrich and Blueberry had the actual hot dogs, but Superman and Heavyweight carried the buns. I joked that they shouldn’t worry about Superman and Heavyweight—we’ve got the hot dogs, after all. The buns, really, were optional and we didn’t need them.

Eventually Bostrich returned with Superman and Heavyweight not far behind and the hog dogs had finally been reunited with the buns. I love a happy ending. =)

The ending gets even happier for me, however. When they bought the hot dogs, Superman had failed to notice that they were actually turkey dogs, and among his many allergies was a turkey allergy. (I had no idea that turkey could even be an allergy!) So Superman was immensely disappointed to realize that he wouldn’t be able to eat any of the hot dogs, but I stepped in and offered my services to finish his share of the booty. They made a campfire and I cooked a couple of turkey dogs over the fire which I enjoyed. I had already eaten dinner and brushed my teeth, but I was willing to brush them again. It was the least I could do. *nodding*

Nice views! Including that blood stain from banging my skin in the shelter the previous day.

Mrs. Dash might be crippled, but he could still out-hike me!

I was trying to create a “dramatic” photo with this, but I think I look like I’m lost instead… (I wasn’t! Just that it looks like I am!)

Hoards of people heading down the steep trail to Laurel Falls!

Laurel Falls is a pretty nice waterfall, but it was awfully hard for me to get a photo with nobody in it. (You actually can see someone’s leg sticking out of that tree on the left, but otherwise, I did a pretty good job!)

Oh, did I mention… I hit my shin again while stepping over a log across the trail and that’s what that fresh blood wound is from. At least I didn’t re-injure my old wound from yesterday—that would have been a lot bloodier and messier!

I couldn’t take the hoards of people anymore and had to leave after about 20 minutes. I would have liked to have lingered longer, though.

Some hikers had trouble following the trail not realizing that it’s that narrow little path between the steep cliff and the Laurel Fork. (See the white blaze on that rock on the right? It’s not very clear, but it’s there!)