Date: 2004-04-05
From: US 421 at Low Gap near Shady Valley, TN

To: Day 30: The Place in Damascus, VA
Miles today: 14.8

Since daylight savings has begun, my alarm went off at 5:20 a.m. on AT Day 30 and after Hot Chocolate and I drove from Roan Mountain State Park to Low Gap, I took my first of several daily doses of vitamin I for my stiff/sore knee and got on the trail around 9:00 a.m. The temperature was around 25-degrees and the wind was blowing at 10-25 mph, thus making for another cold start. The AT began with a rather steep incline and I was soon back up in the snow, although it was clear that a lot of it had melted on the day before. I hiked all alone in peaceful solitude until I reached the Abingdon Gap Shelter at 4.8-miles where I spotted two occupied tents, but no one came out for a greeting. Around 12:30 p.m. I crossed the unofficial TN-VA border at the entrance to the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area sign ¢ My Fourth State!The hike from the border to Damascus, VA was fairly easy and I reached ¢The friendliest town on the AT¢ by 3:00 p.m. after a total daily hike of 14.8 miles. The AT passes through a wooden archway in the town¢s lovely little park, proclaiming a welcome to AT hikers. A hundred yards or so from the arch there was a set of state, national and AT flags and then a bandstand at which many of the ¢Trail Days¢ festivities in mid May are held. Then as you walk into town, the AT runs down the main streets, there are many stores with hiker (and biking) linked names and products.Given that I was supposed to be using this four-day AT segment to recover from my knee injury, I decided to stop despite the early hour and take the opportunity to stay in my first hiker hostel, ¢The Place,¢ run as a service by the local First United Methodist Church. A large number of my earlier AT through hiker acquaintances (Moonpie, Captain Hook, Pilgrim and Tell It Like It Is) were already there (Haiku had left a few hours before I arrived). I also met several new NOBO AT through hikers (Shadowman, Sunshine, ¢¦), and several bikers who were riding on the Virginia Creeper rails-to-trail route. As it turns out, since I miscalculated the total number of days in this segment, I needed to buy a dinner and a breakfast anyway otherwise I would run out of food before I reconnected with my wife.The hostel was a rather large house, with a least five ¢bedrooms¢ equipped with wooden bunks ¢ no mattresses, three bathrooms with showers, a social area, an eating area and a small kitchen with a microwave ¢ no stove and we were not allowed to use our camp stoves. All this for a mere $4 per night and a promise to leave The Place cleaner than one entered. Despite all of these advantages, I soon doubted that I would ever stay in a similar hostel again. Why? Well the problem was the late night noise due to the normal excited chatter and fellowship of young people. A few of these people were frankly quite rude in that they continued to talk even after they entered the bedrooms. Pay back came the following morning as I, as usual, got up before sunrise to pack and leave, and even though I was trying hard to be quiet, one of the ¢late night offenders¢ remarked that he thought there might be monster mice beneath his bed (I had the lower bunk)¢¦