Date: 2006-05-03
From: Camping near a spring 1.9 miles south of Damascus

To: Damascus, VA
Miles today: 1.9
Weather: scattered clouds

   A few days ago we met Mom and Ally at Watauga Lake. We all talked a mile a minute swapping stories and catching up. You would have thought that we hadn't talked at all over the past month. (Those phone cards are wonderful). Between all the chatter, we also switched over to some lighter gear. We've been sweating in our 0* bags for a long time now. It's hard, though, to notice the difference in weight when we also load our packs with five days worth of food. Gear now has a base pack weight of 13 pounds without food or water! Now we'll never catch him.   Update: Dad's new pack is working out great. He said that his hips and shoulders were beginning to hurt, but after we got rid of some weight when we met Mom and Ally, the pain has disappeared completely. Good. Unfortunately, my pack ripped at a seam inside the pocket. Right now, Dad and Gear are checking at a local outfitter to see if they could either fix it or replace it. Just to let you know, we really like these packs. They are lightweight, but still have a lot of padding and a good carrying system. We all find them to be comfortable, especially with our lighter weight gear. Enough about gear.   We're still having a great time following these white blazes. Sometimes they're hard to follow. Like the time we were hiking along in the Smokies and we come to a brushy area with no visible path and a practicully vertical slope. Guess which way the AT goes? Up the almost vertical slope. Yes this AT is a wonderful experiance, but it's no walk in the park. We've met loads of great people and have had some terrific conversations. How often do you get to sit around a living room playing Jenga and listening to a military engineer explain how lasers work? Or how often do you get to watch a guy juggle rocks the size of softballs at 9:30 in the morning? We've done so many new things: hiked 452 miles!, tasted ramps for the first time (look like long, dark, skinny lettuce leaves, but taste like garlic and onions), learned how to play the card game Pitch, hiked a marathon (yes, all of 26.4 miles) in the rain in our soggy wet boots carrying our loaded packs through the hills of TN all in one day to a cheery little hostel known as Kincora, and tasted our first moonpies thanks to an '04 thru-hiker known as Moonpie. And cheese and crackers, all that we've seen; a bear cub waltzed right into our camp in GA, we scared three wild turkeys into flight while webwalking early one morning (for the uninitiated, webwalking is when you're the first one to hike along the trail in the morning after the spiders have had the run of the place all night), we've seen clouds hanging in the valleys between mountains as if that was the place where all clouds are made, millipede/centipede things that were 7 inches long, forests changing completly over a few miles, acres and acres of moss-covered everything, giant African long horn cattle (and there were no fences between us and them. we've been told they wouldn't hurt a fly, but we weren't taking any chances, just pictures), huge balds with nothing covering them but grass, wildfires (we saw the orange glow of one from our campsite on a ridge one night), and waterfalls, some wide, some tall.      Now, onto the it's no walk in the park bit. We've hiked over mountains, lots of them. Some of them went straight up to the point where we wondered how in the world were we able to climb that piece of vertical trail. Some parts of the Nantahala mountains in North Carolina were like that. Roan Mountain never seemed to end. I feel like I've changed somehow going up over that thing. After a 15 mile day going over other tough hills and then to face that monster. Whew! The trail was mostly rocks and roots. Not an easy towpath. Squeezing between rocks, boots slipping on loose stones, going up and up and up, is this the top? No! keep going up and up and up...We were so relieved when we finally made it to the top. We all agreed that day was the hardest one of our hike, even though we did get to the Roan High Knob shelter by about 3pm. Also, back at Tray Mtn. shelter in GA I noticed a few bumps on my hand. We just thought that they were bug bites, but by the time we were going through the end of the Smokies, they itched like crazy. The bumps spread to both of my hands. The heat of the sun and the warmth of my sleeping bag at night irritated the bumps. It went away by the time we got out of the Smokies. We think that it might have been either stinging nettle or poison ivy. Whatever it was, it sure was stealthy. Hanging out on my hands for a week or so and not itching. Anyway, we're still excited. This AT thing isn't so hard.