Date: 2013-04-15
From: Car bound for Damascus, VA

To: Appalachian Folk School
Miles today: 23.5
Weather: clear sky

(In which I slackpack into Damascus from the other direction)After a rest stop off the highway, we pull into Damascus at around 0700. Warren suggests getting breakfast at Cowboys before returning to the folk school for a few hours. A few other hikers are in here for breakfast too. I meet Just Dave for the first time, and am surprised to find Bison here. Bison has been moving fast but is slowing down on account of blisters. I get a fairly large breakfast and plenty of coffee. I also get a bold idea - I will slackpack out of town right now instead of resting for a few hours first. This will let me take a more leisurely time heading out of town, or make a more ambitious day.I move some things into a day pack and Warren departs to attend to things back at his place. Cowboys is a convenience store in addition to a basic restaurant, so I fortify my provisions with some snacks and a one-dollar, 1.5-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. For some reason these have been cheaper than the half-liter bottles, so I get them whenever I find them. I also stock up on cheap high-calorie snacks. My plan for today was initially to slackpack about 16 miles away from Damascus back to US Route 58, but I am now considering a more ambitious plan. I will hitchhike out to Whitetop Mountain and hike back into Damascus. Walking downhill back into town should make this possible before Warren is back in town with the folks attending his Appalachian Trail Institute preparation class this week.It winds up being difficult to hitchhike out of Damascus. I walk along the Virginia Creeper Trail, which is coincident with the Appalachian Trail as they both depart Damascus, past where US Route 58 and Virginia Route 91 separate. US Route 58 is a scenic byway with little traffic, but an elderly gentleman gives me a ride for a good portion of my outbound trip. Someone else picks me up after plenty of road walking and gets me close to Virginia Route 600. That road is silent, and I walk a couple more miles before reaching the trailhead at about 1000.Part of my motivation to start at Whitetop Mountain today was to take advantage of the morning sky, overcast and dramatic as seen from Damascus. Unfortunately, the Whitetop lies in those clouds, and visibility is limited. As I cross the open, foggy mountaintop I find Rooster and Sweat proceeding north. Warren had found Rooster in Damascus and returned his sleeping pad the other day. Rooster presents me with the reward he had promised in the shelter registers for the return of his pad, though I did not plan on collecting it. We part ways and I begin the long descent toward Damascus.I run into nobody else for a while, finishing one book I had been listening to and starting another. I had been listening to A Game of Thrones but now I switch to another book series to see if it will be interesting enough for me to listen to more by that author. Near the bottom of the mountain I pass Tractor and another hiker, neither of which I have encountered before. On a low hill south of the next highway crossing I see Grrrr for the first time in a while. It is the first time I have run into him out of camp, and I learn he is hard of hearing. It feels strange to be shouting in someone's face to just communicate a basic exchange - we share how the Trail has been and what we have been up to and who we have seen.I encounter the Virginia Creeper Trail again where the Appalachian Trail joins it to cross a stream on an old railroad trestle. The Virginia Creeper Trail is a rail trail with very gentle terrain, and I am frustrated to look down on it when I split from it. I don't mind the terrain, but it looks like a more pleasant walk on the rail trail that parallels a stream and crosses it repeatedly. Instead, I have several little ups and downs with no real interesting views. There is a small pond alongside the Trail, and those are uncommon along the Trail in the south, but the streamside trail would have made for a more enjoyable walk.I pass the first shelter north if Damascus and begin a long descent back to US Route 58, my second of three intersections with this road today. I am surprised to find Chickadee and Bison on this descent - Chickadee has been ahead of me for a while but has taken some time off for her ankles. Since Bison also has foot issues at the moment, they are both pushing on slowly. It has been nice doing a long southbound slackpack today. At the beginning of the day I was seeing hikers a day or two ahead of me, and now I am seeing hikers a day or two behind me. It is surprising just how few hikers are on the Trail in my immediate area right now - I must still be in what is left of the void created when the Smokies were closed for the late March snow and many hikers were delayed.I cross the highway again for one more climb away from US Route 58 just to return to that road again. It is late in the day, and I do not pass anybody leaving town at this hour. I am aiming to meet Warren and his Appalachian Trail Institute folks at 1730 at the Blue Blaze Caf©, and it looks like I will be close to being on schedule in spite of walking the extra miles. As I return into Damascus on the road walk, Warren passes by heading to the caf©. One of my friends from the Glenside, PA dance has decides to take on the Appalachian Trail next year, and she is here for Warren's class.It is nice to see a friend from back home, and also nice to meet the other potential 2014 hikers. I take many questions from these folks, and hopefully it is a nice perspective to hear from me in my current state, in the midst of my first attempt at a thru-hike. For once I wind up with plenty of leftover pizza. Interacting with all these folks has distracted from eating and giving my stomach time to decide I am full before I have eaten very much. Some of these folks are surprised I did not eat the entire pizza, and honestly so am I.Warren has a seat in his car so I ride with him to the grocery store and then back to the folk school. I pick up a half gallon of orange juice to keep me going on the way out of town, but not much else as I still have plenty of food from my Elk Park resupply and eating so much town food almost daily since then. Beside, I have half of a pizza to bag up and bring along for tomorrow's sustenance. Back at the school I set up in an empty bunkhouse and briefly join the other folks to watch part of a video before retiring to sleep. I have to get up and out early since Warren has these folks to attend to tomorrow.Peace,