Erwin, TN to Damascus, VA (Day 44-56/April 28-May 10)

Day 44 & 45, 4/28 & 4/29; Erwin, TN to Curly Maple Shelter

A lovely day at Uncle Johnny's yesterday. We arrived about 12:15 which means we made GREAT time. An 11+ mile day in about 5 hours of hiking time (6 hrs including breaks) is unheard of for us. In order to accomplish that, we woke at 5AM and were walking out of camp at 6:08. We began by headlamp but very soon we were walking with the rising sun, and less than two hours into our hike we hard our first bear sighting! A mama and her cub which was up a tree. They were down a ravine and a very safe distance away, but we still talked to them and let them know we were there. It was a very neat experience!

We wound up choosing to tent at Uncle Johnny's hostel when we learned that we could also shower and do laundry there, and there was a festival to include low country boil in the evening, And we would also receive free shuttles to food and resupply. It worked out splendidly... Until my allergies flared and I've been itching and congested since. Thank goodness for antihistamine eye drops and Benadryl! 

As Hikers, we eat a lot. We had breakfast at Huddle House. The food was OK, the service terrible! And we stopped at a hiker feed this afternoon before heading up the mountain. The Zion Baptist Church of Jonesboro, TN had burgers and hotdogs with all the fixings, along with chips, beans, coleslaw, veggies, and dessert. It was super tasty and greatly appreciated by all!

We then headed up the 4.5ish miles to the shelter. We're currently in said shelter (normally we prefer to tent, but tenting is limited here), and we're sharing it with mice and a few very large spiders. The destructive nature of mice, and my allergy to spiders had me a bit worried. If there's no part after this one... You know what happened.

Day 46, 4/30; Curly Maple Shelter to Cherry Gap Shelter

What a gorgeous day today was! The sun shone all day, but unlike yesterday there were nice breezes most of the day. We took a long first break while i caught up with my sister and Dad, which was nice. We had a day full of climbs, but they didn't feel terribly bad and the walking was so nice. We topped a mountain to find a small field with fantastic views of the surrounding mountains. We then moved on to Unaka Mountain which was a little challenging for me, but very pretty. There was another Spruce forest, though not nearly as large as the one in the Smokies. But neat just the same. Shortly before the summit we saw a Spruce tree with ornaments, as though it was decorated for Christmas. This was a memorial to young man who who does early in life (I believe by suicide), Max Norrell. We'll go on Facebook and leave a note as we were asked to do. It was a bit sobering to visit. Despite this, we ended the day on a positive, having hung out this evening with The Colonel, U-Turn, Macaroni, Alex, Steel Head, and Alex. All super nice and we're happy to have met the! I felt a little discouraged this afternoon thinking I was too slow, but then I did the math and realized that we managed 12.8 miles in 7ish hours isn't so bad. Tomorrow is a short day at only 9 and change. Looking very forward to an early day!

Day 47, 5/1; Cherry Gap Shelter to Clyde Smith Shelter

We hate rain. I mean, we know it's important and necessary, and we like having water to drink, but walking in it sucks. Today brought rain and wind like I don't think I've ever seen before. I almost took a picture of the leaves on the trees. They were blowing so hard it looked like they would come right off the trees. First it was just wind, then the rain started. My boots were full of water for the first time. We'll see what the morning brings. Our clothes are mostly dry, thankfully.

We're sheltered with some friends and hunkered down for the night. U-Turn is sleeping next to me, and is currently worried about how the mice get up the walls. 

Tomorrow is going to be tough with our last 6,000 foot mountain until New England. We're hoping for a 16 mile day, which is long, hard mileage. We'll see how far we get.

Day 48, Tuesday 5/2; Clyde Smith Shelter to Over Mountain Shelter

Oh wow, what a day! The weather was so absolutely perfect to go over Roan Mountain today! We had expected the climb to be pretty awful, and we were pleasantly surprised that it wasn't. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty darn hard. But doable. The sky as we approached the summit was clear and cool with views until forever (aka "the Peter Pan Line" -- thank you Roller Rinkin). The summit if the mountain itself didn't afford much of a view, but after finding our way down (we both hate walking on rocks!) We topped a bald with 360 degree views of the entire valley. It was simply astounding. We walked all day just the two of us as U-Turn and the colonel were an hour or more ahead of us, and we started talking about the night and where we'd sleep. We like to discuss this before arriving so we don't have to have awkward conversations in front of friends. We agreed to try to push the nearly 16 miles to the Over Mountain Shelter. It's a large shelter in an old barn and it's beautiful here! The Barn itself has ties to the revolutionary war era, as it was used as a rendezvous point for the army. We're tented in the grass (I'm already having an allergic reaction) and many of our friends are here. We're discussing tenting at the hostel tomorrow with a few people and maybe going into town for dinner together. We are just loving the people we meet here and look forward to getting to know more of them in the weeks to come. Side note: today marks 7 weeks on the trail, and today was our longest day yet at about 16 miles. Sharon, I missed you terribly today knowing you'd wanted to hike this section with us. We definitely will have to come back together. It's so gorgeous!

Day 49, Wed 5/3; Over Mountain Shelter to Mountain Harbor Hostel (tent)

Last night, we got to camp pretty late and quickly set to doing chores so we could eat and relax. The tent and beds always go up first thing (thanks, Dad), then food, then socialize. We were tired, but glad to be in such a beautiful setting with so many friends, and we agreed that today would be a leisurely day to the hostel. We woke without an alarm this morning to clear skies and sunshine and cool temps, and took our time getting up and moving. It was such a nice start to the day! We got moving about 930 (we usually try to be out of camp by 8) and enjoyed views looking back down over the valley in which we slept. The barn was visible below Mountains stacked to the horizon. We don't make a habit of memorizing terrain in the book, and will often simply look ahead to know basically what kind of day to expect; climbs, downs, easy, difficult, etc. **Please note that we've dubbed our guidebook's elevation profiles, "AWOL'S Book of Lies and Deception" due to the fact that about a 3rd of the time, they seem inaccurate and misleading. Anyhow, we knew there was a bald on today's itinerary, but didn't know much about it. Oh. My. Gosh! The wind was pretty fierce and almost knocked each of us over more than once, but the views simply cannot be described. I videoed them because a panorama wouldn't capture it all. The clearest sky lead way to breath taking views of blue mountains stacked back as far as the eye could see. I have absolutely fallen in love with The Roan Highlands! We did make now after arriving at the hostel that we're all beyond grateful to have had only wind and no rain while we were up there. 

We arrived at the hostel about 230 after a short 9 miles. I day sorry because we hiked 16 yesterday, but today's 9 seemed to take forever! Even Yard Sale agreed that yesterday was tiring and we were both ready to be finished. So we arrived to find that U-Turn and The Colonel are staying the night, set up the tent near a stream on the property, and showered, before Hydro took us to town for pizza! We meet Hydro at Laughing Heart in Hot Springs and he's super nice! He and a friend are using their cars and day hiking together, and then doing trail magic for fellow Hikers. The pizza was pretty great, and the fresh bakery items we so tasty! We highly recommend anyone in the area to check out Wood Fired Pizza!  Add friends like Yard Sale and U-Turn, and a jam session to Backstreet Boys in the car on the way back, and you have yourself a good time. Clean laundry and a shower, well you've just made a hiker's week!! 

Photos are still a challenge on the blogspot app. If you know anyone working with Google, please tell them to fix this. It's a real pain in the butt! Until it works, check out Facebook and Instagram for photos as we can post! Love to you all, and thanks for your loving support! We wouldn't be where we are without you!

Day 50, Thurs 5/4; Mountain Harbour Hostel (tent) to Mountaineer Falls Shelter

Oh my gosh, breakfast at Mountain Harbour Hostel! Holy Wow! They had fresh everything; eggs, egg casseroles, hash brown casserole, breakfast tacos, pastries, muffins, ham, sausage, French toast.... The list goes on. It was all freshly made and tasted amazing!

Otherwise the day was pretty blah. The highlights are that we got one beautiful view, and we crossed the 400 mile mark. The terrain was decent other than the up out of town. We made our 9 miles to the shelter and beat the rain in the process. The storms are supposed to be bad tonight and we are in the shelter. The tree limbs are already falling on the shelter roof and we are safely inside. The next days call for pretty yucky weather and we don't look forward to it at all.  Though Little Foot reports that behind us a bit, a holler was hit with a falling tree limb today and injured. All 18 of us in this 12 person shelter hope that this person is OK. It's scary to know your friends are out there and could be hurt. We learned recently that one of our early friends was the person airlifted out of the Smokies due to hypothermia. Here's hoping the weather report is wrong.

Day 51, Friday 5/5; Mountaineer Falls Shelter to Black Bear Cabins

The weather wasn't as bad as we expected. Last night there was a lot of rain and wind, and we found many downed tree limbs and whole trees as we walked today, but overall it wasn't so bad while walking. It started raining about 1:30 this afternoon which, coincidentally, was about 25 minutes after we'd stopped for lunch to find a note from U-Turn in the trail journal saying they had a reservation at Black Bear and we're welcome to join. Erik and I talked about it for a minute and decided when we were packing up that we would walk the 6 miles to the road and the extra .4 to the cabin.

Day 52, Sat 5/6; Zero day at Black Bear Cabins

So now it's Saturday morning, and we've just awakened from a night of sound sleep after a shower, in a bed, with real pillows and covers, and I think it's the best sleep I've had yet in 7 weeks. We are taking a zero here to let our bodies and minds rest. I've been feeling pretty poorly, mostly due to allergies which have been exactly as expected. Though sleeping in this morning may have helped some as I didn't wake up stuffy in the middle of the night. So zero today and back at it tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Day 53, Sun 5/7; Black Bear Cabins to Iron Mountain Shelter

We had to leave U-Turn at the cabin to spend some rest days with The Colonel. He's not feeling well. It's so strange to be camping without them after weeks of landing together every night. It was becoming pretty familiar. We're excited to spend some time getting to know some others. We hooked with Pig Pen (Alli) some today for the first time and and she's very nice? We had a good talk about life and expectations and how we compare ourselves. 

The weather was nice, the couple of views we got beautiful, and the hiking relatively easy. We're into Damascus on Wednesday for a nearo and a zero, and we're pretty excited. Hoping to see Sweet Tea and Morning Glory there!

Day 54, Mon 5/8; Iron Mountain Shelter Abingdon Shelter

Another 16 miles on the books! It hurts. A lot. Not a lot to share today. Pig Pen has a master's in Divinity and we had an interesting discussion tonight about G-d and religious leaders. We ran into a mom at the last gap whose son is starting his hike from Springer in a few weeks. She had great questions and kind words that come with genuine interest. We arrived to find that Sweet Tea and Morning Glory found us!!! We're SO excited to see them! The Colonel is starting to feel better and we hope to see them in Damascus, where we'll arrive tomorrow! We can't wait for a couple of days off, especially with more bad weather moving in.  More from town.

 

Day 55 & 56, Tue 5/9 & Wed 5/10

We made it to VA!  We're in Damascus for a couple of days and enjoying the down time.  We walked just under 10 miles yesterday to get here a day earlier than expected.  We'd intended to stay about 2 miles out of town and walk in this morning, but decided the terrain looked good and we would come on in.  We stayed at "The Place," which is a hostel run by the local Methodist Church.  Overall it was fine, but it's a bunk house with plywood bunks that you place your sleep pad and bag on.  It's less than ideal for comfort and we didn't sleep well.  Additionally, the "caretaker" is a man we dubbed "The Warden" due to the fact that he seems to think he has some vested power to be a big pain in the butt.  One of the rules is that lights out is at 10 PM.  No big deal as hikers are usually ready sleep by 8, making 10 more than generous.  Since lights out is 10, your bed as to be ready to sleep before 10.  The Warden wandered into our bunk room and informed me that my sleep pad needed to be inflated by 10...it was 3:30.  He was quite irritating to say the least.  We only stayed there the one night, though.  It was cheap (suggested donation of $7 pp) and we needed a bed for the unplanned night in town.  We're headed to a place called Woodchuck Hostel where we are looking forward to a private room with an actual bed for the next two nights!  We hope for decent pillows as well, but we don't want to push our luck.

The hiking yesterday was pretty easy. We had a little rain to start, but it stopped quickly.  We got a picture at the state line and marveled at the fact that we have walked to Virginia, and then continued on.  We'd planned to spend 2 nights here in town, but coming in early has us spending 3 nights/3.5 days.  In part we feel guilty for taking the time, but we also enjoy the time off.  There's so much to do in town and when we jump in and jump out, there's no rest and we leave feeling rushed and frustrated.  So, we're taking our time.  

 

I was able to stop into the pharmacy here in Damascus (Laurel Family Drugstore) and talk with pharmacist, Kim, about my allergies and possible options to better control my body's aversion to the outdoors.  She was so fantastic and helpful and I want to be sure to shout out to the shop--Please visit for any/all pharmacy needs while in Hot Springs!

U-Turn and The Colonel have met up with us after his illness, and we're happy to report he's on the mend!  We hope they'll hike out with us on Friday!  We're excited to be hearing from so many of you on Instagram photos!  We love the encouragement and thrive on the communication from our support system!  Much love to you all--Enjoy the photos!!

Low Country Boil at Uncle Johnny's in Erwin

Lady Slippers are a very rare orchid--we have seen many in the last 4 days and they are gorgeous!

The view from the Overmountain Barn

Hiker Trash jammin' to Backstreet Boys!  Shout out to Hydro for the lift!

We made it to VA!

2/3 of our Tramily--missing U-Turn and The Colonel

notice the white blaze on the sign-the AT goes straight through Damascus!