Date: 2009-05-24
From: Damascus, VA

To: US 58 - Summit Cut
Miles today: 16.9

In the morning, Jay, Candy, Jungli and I headed off to Mojoes Coffee for some breakfast. As usual, Jay and I talked for a good 45 minutes about finance, the stock market, investments, currency exchange, and other business news. Back at Duke, we would ALWAYS frustrate Candy (hehe) because we would just get into a zone to discuss the financial world. Jay knows much, much more than I do, so he does most of the talking. Upon returning to the hostel, we gathered our belongings for a slack-pack day, and then headed up US 58 to the Summit Cut AT junction. The plan was to slack-pack 16.9 miles back into Damascus. As I explained in a previous post, slackpacking is when you get dropped off up or down the trail and then you hike back to a centralized location. Therefore, you do not need a full pack filled with unnecessary weight (i.e. extra food, tent, sleeping bag, rain gear on a sunny day, etc.). Unfortunately, this time around, I forgot to take the essentials of my waterproof pack cover and rain jacket, but I¢m merely foreshadowing what is to come. The main reason that we all drove up there together was to be able to show Candy and Jay life out on the trail, a shelter, a privy, and the registrar blog, which is what hikers use to communicate with one another. We managed to complete all of these in a quick 1.1 mile stretch. After taking some photos, we said our goodbyes and then started the long trek back to Damascus. Thanks so much for coming, Candy and Jay! It means a lot!Every so often, Scavenger and I hike close together and we chat about our lives, former ladies, family, and life in general. We began a conversation about religion and he was telling me all about his own experiences with religion ¢ namely Christianity and the Bible. It was very interesting. Then, we came across the Virginia Creeper Trail, which, back in the day, was the passageway for a cargo train that would carry lumber from the mountainside into the sprawling lumber town of Damascus. At one point, the entire Washington County, in which Damascus resides, produced more lumber than the entire state of Pennsylvania! But, due to federal regulations and a decrease in the demand for logging, the industry went belly-up and Damascus went through a period of economic depression. They have since turned this passageway into a very popular bike path, which people from all over the United States come to use for pleasure and fun. Damascus now heavily relies on tourism as their primary industry for economic stability. We knew that there was a good chance that it would rain today, but as I was without raingear, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to get wet ¢ potentially soaked. Well, we did ¢ and several times. It had rained so hard that you could barely see in front of you. It was like this for the larger part of the last 9 miles of the day and I was just drenched to the bone. We actually sought cover at the Saunders Shelter, as we wanted to get the hell out of the cold rain in order to dry out for a bit and let the storm pass over. Without a jacket to keep in my body heat, it was absolutely freezing on top of the mountain. My hands had turned completely white and my body heat continued to escape. We ended up stopping for a good 45 minutes and watched the rain die down a bit before heading back out. Interesting note: at the trailhead, someone had placed the skin of a rattlesnake on top of the shelter sign post. It was amazing to touch and to feel and to smell the skin of a rattlesnake. Further down the road, I ran into Peregrino de Santiago, who had planned on hiking from Damascus to Summit Cut and then catch a hitch back down to Damascus. Bad idea. Turns out that not only was he not able to catch a hitch, but he had to walk 13 miles back to Damascus in complete darkness for an extra 6 hours, thereby arriving at 2 am. What turned out to be an easy 17 mile slack-pack day turned out to be a 30 mile slack-pack day, mostly in complete darkness. The rain came down in torrents one more time for a good hour after we left the shelter and we were, again, soaked to the bone. I came across Willow, a beautiful middle-aged woman with a wonderful smile and uplifting spirit. I was surprised to see her so glum, but she had explained to me that her hiking partner, Forrest, a really good guy from the Triangle Area, had decided to get off the trail. I felt her pain as the two of them were really close buddies ¢ what we call ¢trail family¢ ¢ and now he was off the trail. I did my best to console her and promised that I would be thinking about her and sending some positive vibes her way. On a separate, but relevant note, I should state that I am very surprised to see how many people are getting off the trail at this point in time. Since arriving in Damascus just 1 12 days ago, I know of at least six people that decided to get off the trail ¢ and the numbers continue to rise. We made it back to Damascus by 7:00 pm. I saw Maui Bob, a free spirited man from the island of Maui, and we both headed off to Subway to get some footlong subs. Great trail food! I then gathered my belongings, headed to get some ice cream bars (which I shared with everyone), and then went to check the internet at Quincey¢s Pizza for a few minutes. While there, I saw the massive 6¢8¢ Strider, a rising junior at the University of Chicago, who was telling me that he was considering an attempt to consume a 6 lb. burger of angus beef the next day. He said that if you eat the entire thing, then you eat for free. If you don¢t finish it all, then you have to pay $30 for the burger. I wished him luck and then headed back to the hostel.It was getting a bit late, but Maui Bob and I saw down inside the hostel and began talking to Raspberry and Raindancer, the Peace Corps returnees from The Gambia. It turned out to be a hilarious, but very valuable, conversation, as they told us all of the ins and outs of the Peace Corps, along with all of their efficiencies and inefficiencies of the system. Then, it was off to bed.