In an effort to get back up to date, I decided to do one post about the stretch between Erwin Tennessee and Damascus Virginia. I’ll probably continue to do this going forward, as it has become more and more challenging to keep my blog updated due to weather, lack of wi-fi, and just because I’m pretty exhausted most of the time. I looked forward to seeing Damascus outside of Trail Days. Damascus is a tiny hiker town, it boasts around 500 residents, give or take. The town’s economy is almost completely dependent on hikers from the AT and hikers and mountain bikers who run the Virginia Creeper Trail. I’ve heard more than 100,000 people come to do the Virginia Creeper Trail each year. Damascus is also an iconic town on the AT for day hikers, section hikers and especially thru hikers. There are lots of Hostels and two hiking outfitters in town.

Stubz and I headed out of Erwin toward Roan Mountain. We had some tough climbs ahead, and we hoped to do an average of about 10 miles per day give or take, of course depending on the terrain. Right out of town we had a 4000 foot ascent over a mile and a half stretch. It would probably take an hour and a half of walking up an incline that varied in steepness, from straight up to a gradual climb, but never flattened out. We stopped for a minute on the top to catch our breath and drink some water. “Dang it, I didn’t think we’d ever get to the top of this bastard,” I told Stubz between breaths. He just nodded as we both sucked in big gulps of air. Then Stubz said, “that sure sucked, and I think we have another one just like it in about 4 miles.” He was right, we sure did. Hikers like to call what we’re doing “type two fun”. Type two fun is fun that totally sucks while you’re doing it, but when you reach that summit, and stare into the vastness of these wild mountains, untainted by the exploits of man, it makes every step and every strain worth it. It’s type two fun.

The first two days of the hike were beautiful. The sun shined, it was warm but not hot. The trail was tough but not terrible. We did 23 miles those two days. The next morning it started raining again. It rained for an hour or so then quit. We just kept hiking, we were hoping to do 21 miles that day, ending up about 10 miles out of Roan Mountain Tennessee, where we would resupply, wash our clothes, shower, eat some real food.

We were about 12 miles into the hike, making good progress, when it started raining again, it never stopped till we arrived at the shelter that was packed with wet hikers. We found a couple pretty flat spots to camp and pitched our tents in the rain. It was miserable, type two fun.

The bigger problem was that for about the last eight miles of the hike I felt a blister forming on the ball of my right foot. Friction and wet socks and shoes are the recipe for blisters. I couldn’t stop and treat it, it was raining so hard nothing would have stayed on it. So I just kept going and finished the hike. I was limping pretty bad by the time we made it to the shelter.

When I got in my tent I tried to dry off my feet as best I could. I had a blister about the size of a quarter on the ball of my foot. It was a pretty deep blister, the skin covering it was thick. Maybe I’m very inflexible, but there was no way I could position my foot so that I could get a good look at it. It had a lot of blood tinged fluid in it, so I took my knife and made a slit in it to drain the fluid out. I couldn’t really see it, I just basically did it by feel. We were tired and wet so we cooked in our tents, hung our bear bags and went to bed. Hanging my bear bag I could barely put any pressure on my foot without it hurting exquisitely. It was supposed to rain all day the next day too. We had 10 miles to hike, including climbing Roan Mountain and the three Roan Mountain Balds before descending into town. Stubz was going to have to bandage my foot for me in the morning, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

The next morning it wasn’t raining yet, but it was very cloudy and there was thunder rumbling in the distance. Stubz bandaged my foot as I instructed him, and we set out. We hiked a few miles before the rain hit. Up till then my blister was painful but tolerable, once the rain started, the wet bandage started to slip, I went back to hiking three feet at a time, something I hadn’t had to do for quite a while. The rain pelted us, we passed the Roan Mountain High Shelter and didn’t even slow down, the wind was blowing thirty or forty miles an hour, it was pouring rain, lightening flashed and thunder clapped. We wanted off of the mountain. We climbed the balds in the same conditions, it was raining sideways, every step with my right foot brought stinging pain. Finally we crested the balds and began descending into the woods. The rain slowed down and eventually stopped. I limped down the several miles of switchbacks to the highway. We were about three miles from the town of Roan Mountain, but there was a hostel about a half mile up the road so we walked there.

We sat at a picnic table and drank Mountain Dew, it was the only thing not sold out of the coke machine We decided to stay at the Roan Mountain Bed and Breakfast, and found a trail angel Cindy that would come give us a ride. Cindy is a woman in her sixties, retired ER nurse, and widow. She is truly a trail angel, she spends her days giving hikers rides at no charge. She started after her husband died, she found herself never leaving her home, she decided to start helping hikers as a way to keep herself busy and fulfilled.

Cindy is part of the essence of the Appalachian Trail. She gave us several rides while in and around Roan Mountain. She never took payment, but she did let us take her to breakfast one morning at a local diner.

Roan Mountain Bed and Breakfast was awesome, we washed our clothes and wore loaner scrubs. Ann, the wife, took me to the pharmacy to get some stuff to bandage my foot with. Steve, the husband took us to resupply and dropped us off and picked us up for supper. I soaked my foot in Epsom salt and tried to stay off of it.

The next morning we bandaged my foot and I put on my shoe. It hurt to barely put any pressure on it, much less carry a thirty five pound pack on my back and hike on it. I told Stubz I couldn’t hike, he would have to go on without me. I was going to have to zero. Stubz said he was good with it, and we’d see each other up the trail. I worked on my blog, set up my wet tent in the yard to dry out, and generally just tried to let my foot rest. I hated having to waste a hiking day but I didn’t want the blister to turn into a bigger problem, like get infected. It was sunny that day but there was a lot more rain in the upcoming forecast. I hoped I would be able to hike the following day.

Late that afternoon I got a text from Solo. I hadn’t seen him since Trail Days, but I knew he was a little behind me. He had just arrived at the Mountain Harbor Hostel in Roan Mountain, and he wanted to know if I was interested in doing a 24 mile slack-pack the next day. I told him about my foot and I thought that may be a great way to put in some miles while I rested my foot. Slack-packing means you hike without your full pack, only a day pack with water, snacks, and rain gear. It’s amazing how much easier hiking is without a pack. Initially I said I wasn’t going to slack-pack. I thought I should do the whole trail pure, pass every single white blaze, with my full pack. Solo made the point that as long as you pass every single white blaze, who cares what you’re carrying on your back. I’m not sure I would have agreed so quickly if I hadn’t had the blister, but I agreed that day.

Cindy picked me up and we headed over to Mountain Harbor to pick up Solo. It had rained during the night and Solo’s tent and gear were drenched. He was in good spirits as usual anyway. A kid from Germany, they call him Sole-less because of some shoe incident, had decided to come with us. The way the slack-pack was going to work, was that Cindy was going to drop us off 24 miles north of Roan Mountain and we were going to hike back south, arriving back where we started. There was a bailout road that crossed the trail 10 miles from where we were starting, so if my foot got too bad I could bail at 10 miles and Cindy or Steve from the B&B would come pick me up. It wasn’t supposed to rain until late that evening, so we figured if we were lucky, we could finish before the rain started.

Solo and a group of other hikers at the hostel had cooked chicken and pork on the fire the night before. Apparently some of it was undercooked but they ate it anyway. About five miles into the hike Solo started complaining about his stomach hurting. We hit a shelter at about seven and a half miles and Solo laid down in the shelter with stomach cramps. I on the other hand, was doing pretty well. My foot definitely hurt, but it didn’t feel like it was getting any worse, so I was confident I could do the whole twenty-four.

When we reached the 10 mile road Solo sat down on a log and said he didn’t think he should risk trying to do the other 14. Once we started there was no quitting until we finished. Sole-less and I told him we were good with whatever he wanted to do, we could always come back tomorrow and do the 14. Solo said he thought that was best. We had no cell service to call Steve or Cindy so we walked up the road hoping to find a spot with a signal. After about a mile we came to a trailer house up on the hill with an old guy standing in the yard. We told him we would give him thirty bucks for a ride to Roan Mountain. He said he didn’t have a car but that his sister would probably give us a ride. His sister came out and instantly agreed. Solo and Sole-less jumped in the back of her Toyota pick-up and I rode up front with her. I wish I could remember her name. She was raised up there on the mountain, and had never been any further than Hot Springs North Carolina from her home. I stayed at the B&B again that night and some other hikers I knew showed up that evening as well. They caught up with me because of my zero. We did the 14 the next day, and the following day we hiked thirteen with full packs. My foot still hurt a lot, but Solo was an expert at dressing blisters after his time in Afghanistan. He was able to make it tolerable to hike on for most of the day.

Our next stop of interest was Shook Branch Recreation Area and Watauga Dam. We hiked down to the lake that Saturday afternoon. There were lots of people at the lake, it was prime pickings for hikers. “Hey are you guys thru hikers?”, people would ask. When we answered to the affirmative they would offer us burgers, drinks, fruit, all kinds of stuff. They wanted us to tell them about the hike. We obliged them. Hikers refer to what we were doing as “Yogi Bearing”. As it became dusk we hiked into the woods and found a stealth campsite to spend the night. No camping was permitted in the park around the lake, but we hiked out of the park into the nearby woods.

The next morning Sole-less said, “I think we should zero here, there will be all kinds of people at the lake, it being the Sunday before Memorial Day. We’ll eat like some kings I bet.” My foot was still pretty sore from hiking so I said I was fine with it if they wanted to stay, we would just need to do the 40 miles to Damascus in two and a half days starting on Memorial Day to make up for it. They said that would work so we went back to the park, and as predicted, ate like kings and met some really nice people. We camped on a point out on a peninsula that jutted out into the lake. We cowboy camped since the weather was nice and there weren’t many bugs. Cowboy camping is camping without your tent, just laying out your sleeping pad and bag and sleeping under the stars. We built a fire and it was a wonderful evening.

I woke up and began packing my stuff. The other two guys were slower to rise, so when I was packed up I told Solo I was heading out, I was sure they would catch up with me on trail, I was hiking slower to avoid putting too much pressure on my foot. I was hiking well, my foot was starting to feel better. I was about twelve miles into the hike, planning to stop at Iron Mountain Shelter which would be 14.4 miles for the day, when Solo texted me and asked if I had made it to Iron Mountain. I texted that I was a couple miles out. He texted that they hadn’t even gotten started yet, but they were planning to night hike and they would meet me there in the morning. I made it to the shelter, set up my tent, and talked to the hikers at the shelter. I had never met any of them before that night.

The next morning there was no sign of Solo or Sole-less, and I wasn’t really surprised. I had decided to hike to at least 20 miles that day, to make it to the Tennessee/Virginia border. At last I would be out of North Carolina and Tennessee, entering my fourth state of the fourteen I would pass through on this journey. I started early, my foot was feeling a little better. I hiked the first eight, stopped at a shelter and ate lunch then continued on. I came to a second shelter, about 10 miles outside of Damascus, and was tempted to stop for the night. It was a small shelter with few tent sites. There was already one hiker there who was sleeping in the shelter, and I had passed quite a few along the way that I suspected would stop there for the night. I decided to go at least to the border and find a campsite and only have about three or four miles left to hike to get into Damascus the next morning.

I hit the border around 7:00PM and dusk was starting to fall. The mountains were steep and there were no campsites near the border crossing. I hiked onward toward Damascus. About a mile further I say a flash of movement on the trail about 150 yards behind me. I thought it was another hiker and really didn’t pay any attention for a few minutes. I eventually glanced back and there was a three hundred pound or so bear following me down the trail about 150 yards back. I stopped and he stopped and just stared at me. I said, “hey bear, git out of here.” He just stood there looking at me, so I turned around and just started walking down the trail again. He kept following me for probably two and a half miles. I stopped a few times and he stopped each time too, only to resume following me when I started walking again. Eventually I guess he lost interest, he disappeared from the trail and I found a campsite right as darkness fell, a couple of the people I had met the night before were camped there. I set up my tent, ate a peanut butter and honey burrito and drank a liter of water. I had hiked twenty four miles, the furtherest I have traveled on foot in one go since I ran my last marathon. Sleep came fast that night.

I had wondered what it would feel like to hike twenty plus miles in a day. I knew that if you walked carrying a pack in the mountains for 20 plus miles it would have take about as much, if not more, effort than running a marathon. I knew how running a marathon felt, I was also curious how you would feel the next morning after hiking that far too. I did notice a few key differences. The first is that there’s no shower, or tub to soak in after you finish hiking, like there usually is when you finish running a marathon. You also don’t usually sleep in the clothes you ran the marathon in that night like you do when your long distance hiking. Other than that it feels about the same.

June 1st I hiked the easy downhill miles into Damascus. The trail runs right through the middle of town. I went to a Convenience Store and ate some fried chicken and drank a Dr. Pepper. Then I went to Crazy Larry’s hostel and got a room. It is the nicest hostel I’ve been to. It was clean and comfortable. I spent an hour listening to Crazy Larry tell me his story, it’s worth hearing so I’ll tell a little about Larry in my next entry. Solo arrived in Damascus later that afternoon, He must have hiked 30 miles that day to catch up with me. Sole-less didn’t catch up till the next morning. He was covered in poison oak, we knew he wouldn’t be joining us the following day. I guess they don’t have poison oak in Germany, he didn’t even know what it was.