Three States Down

On the 27th after trail magic I did 5 more miles for a 14 mile day and camped a mile after Wilbur Dam Rd. On the 28th I did 18 miles to Double Spring shelter and UV did 17 miles and camped. On the 29th I did 16.4 and camped 2 miles out of Damascus. On the 30th, we did 2.3 miles into town. After escaping the vortex of prepared foods, on the 1st we did 5 miles and camped along a river I don't know the name of. (For assistance locating this mom, it was a mile after US 58 and right where the AT first gets quite close to the Virginia Creeper Trail after leaving it for the first time. Hope that helps a bit.) On the 2nd we did 14.9 miles and camped on top of Whitetop Mt, just after USFS 89.

When I had digested enough to move, which took an extended period of time, I night hiked to catch UV. It reminded how much I enjoy night hiking. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a nice late evening activity. It is quiet, peaceful and emphasizes the feelings of solitude and aloneness that accompany one while hiking. If you attempt it, have a good headlamp; they make all the difference.

The next day had many trials that had to be overcome. Since we camped randomly on an exposed ridge I had zero water. The first water source was inexplicably difficult to find so I had to make it the 4 miles to the next shelter's water source. It made me hate life and all of existence. Being quite thirsty, I wasn't thinking completely clearly and started down the blue-blazed trail to water with my pack on. This particular trail was outrageously and potentially vindictively steep and long. By the time I hit water I knew going back up was going to make me cry and/or curse the designers of the trail. I was not wrong. I believe I put it thusly in the shelter log, "I HATE THAT WATER SOURCE WITH A BURNING PASSION. I HOPE IT DIES A DEATH WHERE IT KNOWS ALL IT EVER LOVED WILL SUFFER FOR ETERNITY." I feel that is potentially being too kind. Let's just say it was a rough start to the day. The next major event of the day was the first ever sighting of bears by us! UV was a few hundred yards ahead of me until I came upon her stopped in the trail. She had startled two bear cubs up over the rise and the mother was just kind of hanging out, saying hello. For the remainder of the day and some of the following day UV would turn to me and exclaim, "I saw three bears!" It reminded me of when Cassie got a truck when I was in college. For weeks most of what I heard her say was, "I got a truck!"

Later that day I had a bovine standoff. While walking through a cow field, the first one we had done, a group of cows decided to pretend to be Gandalf. I correctly interpreted their "Moo" to mean "You shall not pass." Fortunately cows are lazy and they didn't feel like moving to maintain the charade. I escaped around them and taunted them for their failure as I left their pasture. I hiked until 9:15pm that day to hit the shelter, surrounded by hordes of small children masquerading as boy scouts. Incidentally these hordes had scared off other actual hikers and I got the shelter basically to myself.

Besides multiple excessively long breaks, the next day was pretty uneventful. The one exception was at the last shelter of the day the water was ".2 miles down a steep path." This invoked images of rage, hatred and pain involved with the last such water source so I decided to go 8 more miles to a campsite without any water rather then give the mountain the satisfaction of causing me pain. Logically this might be flawed as an argument but it made some sort of sense to me at the time. The real kicker was the water was .2 miles downhill from the campsite. Mother nature is a bitch who always revels in the torment of others. Just before camp we hit the Virginia state line. It felt pretty good to finally be done with North Carolina/Tennessee but I know Virginia will feel like it goes on forever. It is 530ish miles making up 25% of the entire trail.

Damascus was foody. While it seems to be a nice town, towns all kind of seem similar to me at this point. They provide cold treats, food that I don't have to cook or clean for and interior sleeping arrangements.

Leaving Damascus the AT and the Virginia Creeper Trail are one and the same. Maybe .5 a mile out of town they split. I fought the urge to blue blaze and stuck to the AT. While hiking I decided a conversation between the two trails would go something like this:

VCT "Wow, this river is beautiful, we should follow it for six miles and have a nice scenic stroll."
AT "It is quite nice but if we take a left here we can zigzag through the mountains for 12 miles!"
VCT "That sounds... Harder. Are there great views along the way that make the harder terrain and 6 extra miles worth it?"
AT "Views? Of course not! It will be completely covered in trees basically the whole time. But every now and then we can swing over to the river so we can glimpse the water."
VCT "... Why don't we just take the relatively easy route along the river? Then the whole thing will be scenic. Besides, don't you spend all of your time in the mountains? A change of scenery might be nice."
AT "Your ideas sound completely absurd! How about I go my way and you go your way. We can meet in 12 miles to compare notes."
VCT "Okay... See you in 6 miles. *muttered* Crazy AT spends too much time in those mountains."

It says a lot about a thru-hiker that I can basically know the mentality of the trail and make the conscious decision to follow the AT. I might be completely insane.

We found a great camping spot along the river and had a refreshing swim. The next day was fairly boring except the full realization that Virginia shelters have shitters. Hikers have low standards. Whitetop Mt felt like it went on forever but there was a nice camping spot at the top.

This post is already rather long so I will leave my newest philosophical ramblings until the next post. They focus more on trail life and happiness than religion so they will be less controversial.

Lastly, a rundown of the photos. There is a cow trying to cause me to get lost by destroying a white blaze post. There is the bovine standoff. The picture of the bear actually came out fairly well. There is a picture of my tent at the river campsite and then one of it the next day at the Whitetop Mt campsite. This shows how rough living on the trail can be. There is one of me at the state line. Finally I had to post a picture of Mr Fabulous and his enormous pack. This is what happens if a thru hiker goes hungry before town. They get a bit excessive with carrying food.