Date: 2019-05-01
From: Stealth site at 446.2

To: Damascus
Miles today: 24.6
Weather: light intensity drizzle

The predawn light and eventually the birds pry me awake and out of the cocoon of my sleeping bag and liner. I thought I heard animals near the tent during the night, but it may only have been Gina up for a midnight pee. In any case Belch and Gina are hiking out around 6:30 while I'm still struggling for full awareness. The soft duff under this virgin stealth site was very comfortable. Since the first week of this section I haven't had back or joint pain from sleeping on my thin foam pad, but last night was almost like sleeping on a mattress.I catch up with my partners an hour or so later at Tennessee route 91. This begins a long pasture walk which is the only section of the AT advertised as handicap-accessible. It includes a graded dirt ramp up to the meadow from the parking area. The pasture makes for a great distraction from the usual forest scene, with sweeping views across rolling fields and distant mountain ranges. At one point we diverge from the trail and find ourselves walking parallel to but not on the trail. I apologize to Gina and Belch as I hurry back to redo the walk on the trail proper. I'm too close to the end to slack off now. They completely sympathize, and in fact were about to do the same themselves. Hitting every white blaze isn't as popular as it once was, but for me at least it feels right. I'm here, I'm gonna hike the trail as it is.At Double Springs Gap shelter we find The Colonel and Sweetwater taking a break. They're planning to hike 25 miles to Damascus today. Unusual for two older guys to be in such a hurry. But The Colonel is intent on finishing in 150 days to best his thruhike from two years ago when he had medical issues, and Sweetwater is intent on finishing for his charity. Many supporters have pledged some amount per mile if he finishes and signed well wishes on his pack. Belch, Gina and I are planning only to get close to Damascus and hike in tomorrow morning. The Virginia state line looks like an attractive compromise, several miles south of town. We are content because we plan to hitch into Shady Valley for lunch at the next road.At US 421 a fifty-something couple named PB & J are taking a break. They're hiking southbound from Waynesboro, Virginia. They are very upbeat and cheer us on as we try to hitch on this lightly traveled road. The first car passes with a wave. Many minutes later the second car stops, and PB&J cheer wildly. Out trail angel is Amber, a young girl from Bristol, Tennessee who's out for a scenic drive. She gives us a lift the three miles into Shady Valley.Shady Valley is just a small crossroads with a restaurant and a general store, but that's enough! At the restaurant I order a Shady Burger, BLT, and cheese fries with a ham sub to go for dinner. Last evening my stove stopped working. Thanks, I believe, to debris shot into it from my new fuel canister. Another stove worked just fine immediately after with the same canister. The tiny stove served me well for 2000 miles, but it was only a ten dollar BRS-3000 so I can't complain.Gina notes wryly that restaurant patrons say hi as she passes to use the restroom. This is not like New Jersey or Pennsylvania, where people avoid eye contact with strangers.Properly fueled, I wander over to the General Store to load up on cold drinks. I try Cheerwine for the first time - a less fizzy cherry-flavored cola - and it is delicious. This store is mainly a biker (motorcyclist) stop on US 421, known as "the snake" for its 489 curves over three mountains. They advertise non-ethanol gasoline: venomous (93) and non-venomous (87).It's been a couple hours in this tranquil crossroads but now it's time to return to the trail. Problem is we hear a lot of birds but very few engines. Hardly a car passes, and almost none are heading toward the mountains.Finally a gray-bearded guy in a pickup with AT stickers stops. At first he seems to be messing with us, acting like he doesn't know we want a ride, but with a window full of hiker stickers I'm confident we are in. Eventually he hops out and opens the tailgate. I climb in back with the packs. His rear seat is taken up with rifles so Belch and Gina squeeze in front. He makes a U-turn and heads back to the hills, six miles out of his way.  Our driver is Phoenix, also known as Ropes, a Scranton native who's hiked Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. He just moved to Shady Valley with his wife and bought a 34 acre spread. We seem to be the first hikers he's picked up down here. With the trail so close he's considering doing more to support it. I tell him jokingly Tennessee could use some privies.At the trailhead, married couple No Worries and Hot Buns are hanging out. Hot Buns got her name by lighting her new Patagonia jacket on fire. No Worries is familiar, I've heard his name and seen his bright orange beard before. If they weren't hiking they say they'd be touring around California in a Sprinter van.There's very poor water sources over the next section. Belch scoops water from a puddle, but I take a hard pass. Instead I end up hiking a quarter mile down a steep hill (and back) at the next shelter. But both sources are at least clear, unlike those I've gotten in New Jersey in summer.We keep hiking. The trail is easy with gentle ups and downs over the ridgeline and few rocks. Blue mountains fill the horizon on both sides. The sun flits in and out of the clouds. We come to a structure marked as a "disused" shelter. It's a three-sided log cabin with a small platform built for two and a rolled up tarp on the front. It's apparently an emergency shelter known as the Holiday Inn Express, but we call it the Love Shack. It has clearly gotten plenty of use, even with no water source.I hike ahead, and as the miles fall away I decide I'm going all the way today. I'm going to finish the AT in Damascus. My feelings are very mixed, and I don't quite know how to process them. People keep asking how I feel about finishing. A strange question. How does anyone feel about finishing something they love? A sense of accomplishment, perhaps. Pride, maybe. But it is also an ending. An ending of something that will never be the same again. Part of me wishes it were not done. But there is much to celebrate.I arrive at the Virginia border and leave a note for my companions whom I'm sure are camping here, along with more water since it's a dry site, and the ham sub I've carried for over ten miles. It's the least I can do. Belch bought me lunch today. Tomorrow I will drive them wherever they need to go before heading home. They've been good friends. I calculate my hiking time while descending the last few miles into Damascus. I figure my sections have had me on trail for 120 days, a tad under four months, over the last two years, though some of those days involved very few hiking miles and a lot of car or train travel. That includes three true zero days, but not the weeks and months I've been at home between sections with Sara and the kids. In fact it includes weeks of hiking with my kids in Shenandoah and Pennsylvania. All in all, an average of 18.25 miles per day, far faster than average. If I were to do it again, I would not try to do it as quickly. I've enjoyed my more spontaneous and relaxed hiking style in this last section immensely. I've made good friends and wonderful memories. Life is not meant to be rushed. I enter Damascus near the library. My car is still there, untouched. I grab my civilian clothes from the trunk and stuff them in the pack. When I reach the arch welcoming hikers to Damascus, I pause to take a picture of a pebble I've carried more than 300 miles. I have not mentioned it until now. Near the Fontana marina, before the Smokies, there was a boot filled with pebbles, and a sign with a request from the widow of a hiker who died of cancer before he had a chance to experience the AT past that point. The request was to carry a pebble up the trail to whatever is your destination, so that her departed husband might symbolically experience it. I take a picture of the pebble in front of the arch to send to his widow, then place it under a bush by the arch where thousands of hikers will pass over the coming years. Similar pebbles have no doubt made it to Katahdin and many other points. A fitting tribute to a man who loved the trail. I walk the final half mile into town around the park, observing small town life - a man mowing his lawn, kids swinging on the playground, teens gathered for a pep talk on the basketball court, couples out for an evening stroll, a neighbor helping load a truck.I swing around the train car at the entrance to Laurel Avenue, Damascus' main street. Another block brings me to the town hall. This is the end. This is where I started my section from Damascus to Daleville last August. Two thousand, one hundred, and ninety-two miles. I lay a hand on the fresh white blaze on the telephone pole by the street. I didn't think I would get emotional, but I have to lean my head against the pole. I pray to God for strength for my family and myself, I thank Him for the health and fortitude and opportunity to finish this task, and I pray for Him to reveal my path in good time, that I may honor Him, be true to myself, and do what is right. It's several minutes before I can compose myself and move on. I find High Mileage at the next corner, about to retrieve his car at the end of his own section. He saved the husky from our troubled friend the other day, and I thank him. I hope that hiker finds some peace and a better way in the world.At Hikers Inn I check into the bunkhouse. Honeybee and two others who were at Boots Off trying to aquablaze the Watauga River are here, along with a section hiker named NASA. I offer dinner to celebrate but no one is hungry. After a shower I head to 7 Trails Grill. But along the way I see Odie's bus parked in front of Crazy Larry's hostel and tell him my good news. Foundation is also here, from Boots Off, and he joins me for dinner. In the middle of my Buffalo Chicken pizza and Devil's Backbone lager, Belch and Gina walk in. They decided to hike in after all! They are staying with a hiker who they helped in New Jersey, but I ply them with food before they leave with takeout. Foundation is an interesting kid. Twenty-four, a tall and lanky college dropout with short brown curly hair, he loved skateboarding before he started hiking, and has hiked pieces of many trails, including thruhiking the Arizona, Colorado, and Pinhoti trails. He talks reverently of being in flow when he's hiking, a trait he ascribes also to yoga and skateboarding. When he has reached his potential in an activity he is no longer interested in it, whether it be school or skateboarding. He's not there yet with hiking. He attempted to do three 30-mile days in a row this week but missed by a few miles. I suspect he will try again soon. But he's also content to work at his father's pizza restaurant in Portland, Oregon between hikes. He described it happily as work that requires little skill, only speed. It, too, has a sense of flow. I grab some beers at the gas station on the way back to share with my hostel mates. Paul, our host, joins us after delivering my laundry. He thrued in 2010 as Skink, a quirky character from a novel by Carl Hiasson. He's orginally Flemish (Belgian) from near Bruges, and bought the Hikers Inn with his wife during his thruhike and has run it continuously these last nine years. He enjoys hiking and biking the area, and is familiar with the Pyrenees and other European hiking trails. Damascus to him is a wonderful town because of the people who populate it. There are dozens of former thruhikers here.That's a fitting end for the last day of my hike. Tomorrow I'll be doing trail magic for as many of my trail friends as I can find before heading home. And hopefully soon I will have some closing thoughts on this journey.