Date: 2009-05-17
From: Tent City, Damascus, VA

To: Tent City, Damascus, VA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Trail DaysTrail Days was three days of music, vendors, free food and drunken dubachery with thousands of hikers and Appalachian Trail enthusiasts. Just what most of the thru-hikers needed after months of slogging through rain, snow, mud, bugs, and the great outdoors that is the Appalachian Trail. Damascus hosts this annual even that brings an estimated 25,000 people to this town of 1,700. At the height of the weekend, the hikers outnumber the town folk 15 to 1. Most of the businesses, hostels and churches welcome the event and spend much of the year preparing for it. Unfortunately the local police along with scores of part time and rent-a-cops aren't quite as accomodating. Its rumored that it has something to do with the local chief of policy getting embroiled in a meth scandal and trying to rebuild his reputation by intimidating and harassing hikers during Trail Days. For most hikers, it was the one blemish on an otherwise very enjoyable festival. Beginning on Friday, Tent City really began to fill up, becoming an endless sea of tents and old VW vans. It was an odd muxture of hikers, campers, survivalists, climbers, bikers, hippies, dead heads, drifters, naturalists, gear heads and RV retirees - but it worked. Everyone was there for the same reason - to take a break from the outside world, blow off some steam, and commune with like minded people who share a love for the great outdoors. Damascus itself is a sleepy town in Southwest Virginia that turned to the trails as a way to rejevenate the once booming town after a devastating departure of manufacturing jobs in the 70s that slashed the town's population by 80 perecent. Now they largely rely on revenue from tourism - folks looking for a cabin retreat in the mountains, trout fishermen, hiking on the AT, and the thousands of bikers looking for the relaxing 30 ride down the Virginia Creeper Trail. Most of the festival is centered in the town park which is the first feature northbound hikers encounter after emerging from the woods on the AT. There are about 50 - 75 vendors selling everything from tents, hammocks, shoes, packs, clothes, art, crafts, stickers, musical instruments, and fried everything. Every major gear company sends reps and gear entrepenuers try to find an audience for their models among hikers constantly looking to shave ounces or get the latest cool gear. There's also a large gazebo and picnic area with a wide variety of speakers and performers - including authentic bluegrass and Appalachian music players. Some of the events are geared toward the hikers like the hiker talent show, free medical clinics, hiker feeds, free showers, gear repair, etc. But there's also a variety of entertainment that appeals to a wider audience. We managed to participate in many of the events but there just wasn't enough time to do everything we wanted. It was just a great opportunity too to relax from the trail with fellow hikers we had met along the trail, some we hadn't seen since the first day at Springer Mountain. There was also plenty of entertainment for Einstein to enjoy. He was a bit overwhelmed by all the dogs but enjoyed playing with many of the other trail dogs, especially some he'd become friends with along the way. I entered him into the Trail Days Dog Show where he won first place in the "Mystery Mutt" category and came in third for Best Trail Dog. The best part about Trail Days was reuniting with many of the hikers we had met along hte way and had either passed up or had been left in their dust. Many hikers timed it just right to hike straight into Damascus in time for the fest but many hitched into from all part of the trail, north and south. We met many new people, some we undoubtedely never see again once they returned to the trail because they were so far ahead but we hope to run into them again up the trail. It was great to hear from former thru-hikers who understood our exhaustion, excitment and the whole whirlwind of feelings on the trail. They renewed our confidence that we could complete the trail and gave us great tips to survive to Maine. The best advice seemed to be same mantra: "Hike Your Own Hike". Liz and I had a mission that weekend in addition to having a blast at the festival and tracking down all of our new and old trail friends - we needed to find that bug net for our tent. We talked to every gear expert we could find, hit all the outfitters, did everything we could to try to make it work but it was no go. Half out of frustration and half out of desperate hope that it would work for us, we decided to give hammock camping a try. It was one way to keep the bugs at bay and be comfortable at night. On Saturday afternoon, we picked up two hammocks from Tom Hennessy of Hennessy Hamocks, which are the most popular and loved hammock on the trail. We took them back to Tent City, set it up, and Liz slept in hers that night. It got cold and rained that night and Liz's was pitched hastily so she had a terrible night's sleep. We found that the tarp wasn't quite big enough to keep our gear out of the elements. And it just didn't work for Einstein: he wanted to climb in it to sleep too but he couldn't get in without possibly ripping it. So the next morning, we took the hammocks back and Tom refunded our money no questions asked. He didn't even bother to open the stuff sacks and check on their condition. He trusted us, but was sad to hear Liz had a bad night's sleep. In the future, I will probably get a hammock for solo camping and will definitely give him my business. So while hammock camping was a nice try, we were going to have to fork out the $250 and add 3 more pounds to our base weight afterall unless we wanted to fend off bugs for the rest of the summer. Meanwhile, back at Camp Dizzy Bat on Saturday night, the festivities continued. Gnarley, Graveyard and Jess (now named The Phlo) finally had hiked in and joined our community. Tent City was hopping with a large bonfire and drum circle. There were a hundred or so people around the fire dancing to a dozen drummers. As one person would step away, another would join in. I hopped in myself to take a few turns around the fire. Later that evening I threw an small and inpromptu, and possibly illegal, party in the dugout of the local baseball stadium - which got me my new trail name "Dugout". We also spent some time wandering around Tent City to meet the different trail clubs, hiking clubs and groups of former thru-hikers who reunite at Trail Days each year. Many of them provided Trail Magic at various points of the weekend in the form of coffee in the morning, pancakes, chili, gumbo, hot dogs, beer, etc. Some were promoted beforehad but often they were spontaneous and word spread like wildfire. ("Free food!", "I'm there!") One of the highlights of Trail Days in the Hiker Parade through town, where there's an unofficial contest for who can dress and look the most outrageous. A long standing tradition for the town folk of Damascus is to arm themselves with water guns, water balloons and even hoses to get hikers as wet as possible as they walk Main street for the parade. I even saw some locals park their pickup truck on the corner of the parade route with truck beds full of water balloons. Of course the hikers don't just turn the other cheek - they arm themselves for retaliation. Every dollar store, hardware store, gas station has water guns on sale and stocks up for the weekend. Some even lend their shopping carts for loads of balloons to be carted down the road. It is quite a sight, especially the balloons being lobbed from second story windows. Although Trail Days doesn't officially end until Sunday evening, it started to wind down that afternoon with most of the vendors packing up and heading out of town. Much of tent city was cleared out though we were allowed to stay through Monday morning, which was our plan. The saddest part of that day was saying goodbye to N'Da'Wind, who was getting off the trail to go back to Indiana (which she had been planning to do all along). We are going to miss her greatly, but we are hoping she returns to the trail in late June to join us on a planned aqua blaze (cane trip) up the Shenendoah river. Tent City that night fairly quiet. In fact, Camp Dizzy Bat, most of whose residents had stuck it out Sunday night, became the main gathering area for the straggelers that remained. Our campfire was the place to be despite that BJ Charlie had left with the bat. The police were gone and the fairgrounds were pretty much desserted. We had a relaxing night chatting around the fire, polishing off the rest of the beer and not worrying much about how we were going to get back south on the trail.