Date: 2017-10-13
From: Vaneventer shelter

To: Kincora hostel
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: overcast clouds

To say that Bob Peoples is an AT legend is a bit like saying Donald Trump likes Twitter.I'd heard about him for years for his trail work crews and for his trail advocacy, while his reputation on trail is such that we'd been finding Chuck Norris style graffiti about him in shelters miles before reaching his home turf in Tennessee.Maybe the biggest tribute of all is that meeting this amiable, humble and gently spoken superstar of the trail was today's highlight despite spirited competition between some of the best (and worst) sections of trail yet, random and awesome trail magic and being offered freshly-cooked smores by the Second Breakfast Club.And also despite the cat-pee smell. But more of that later.We'd started the day down in our campsite watching the Second Breakfast Club head out early. They're not naturally early risers but halfway through today were aiming to resupply in Hampton, a town sited a few miles off trail, and that required an early start.I don't have to go into town, although not for commendable reasons. Despite being on the tail end of my third thru-hike, I still haven't managed to master resupplying and one of the reasons why I was dragging my ass out of Damascus a couple of days ago was because it turned out I had five days of food for the nominally three-day section to Hampton. Considering I've got about 20,000km of hiking under my calloused feet, I still make rookie errors...The start of the trail was easy as we followed the gradually descending ridgeline to the dam creating Watauga Lake.After yesterday's unexpected encounters with three nobo thru-hikers on the verge of finishing the trail because they were coming back to complete a section they'd had to skip earlier, I met yet another today. Stitch had skipped this section because she didn't want to lose her tramily while recuperating from some kind of ephemeral injury and was back to do this section, leaving her with just one more to complete her hike. That section was through the Roanoke balds and she'd been deliberately been keeping it until last so she could share the experience with her mother.Soon after that, I reached the road and found some hikers about to head into the woods. Their boots, heavy packs and cleanliness made them stand out from the thru-hiking fraternity but clearly that recognition isn't reciprocal because they asked me if I was a day hiker!"Sort of," I replied, "if you count 139 day hikes in a row."This was met by blank expressions, which suggested the reality still hadn't quite dawned on them.The next section featured a series of warning signs about bears and the problem was sufficiently bad that the shelter in the middle of the section was closed for that reason and was slated for demolition.I'd heard stories that this area was a last-chance saloon for problem bears from places like the Smokies and the Shenandoahs. Later I heard that one of a pair of female bears relocated to here had later taught her two cubs that humans carry the energy-dense food they crave and will abandon it when approached.Whether there is any veracity to these stories, bears were the reason why the shelter was shut and we were warned not to stop in the four-mile stretch from the dam to Shook Branch picnic area. Supposedly it was closed entirely to anyone other than thru-hikers and LASHers.We all regrouped at the picnic area, along with OK and Happy Feet and a bunch of the Second Breakfast Club who were about to head to town. We also met yet more previously unknown sobos, in the form of Rogue and BearScare. The latter's trail name came from his reportedly horrendous snoring scaring any bruin that might be tempted to make contact.The next section featured the PUD that had -- reportedly -- been the inspiration for the term for the AT's Pointless Ups and Downs. This seemed to have some veracity because the map showed that instead of arcing across through a forested area on the northern face of a considerable mountain, it followed up one ridge, traversed below the summit and then headed all the way back down again on the neighbouring ridge. It really was pointless. Sriracha and Sweetblood, who had done this section already on their shakedown hike, could not find the enthusiasm to do it again -- and who could blame them? They decided to get lifts to skip ahead to Kincora Hostel, run by Bob Peoples. Such was their lack of knowledge of the AT back then that they'd never heard of Bob and it was just random that they chose his famous hostel as the place where a friend would pick them up after the hike. A few hours in his company back then had changed all that and they were looking forward to staying the night there this time. Better still, they were happy to take most of the contents of my pack with them so the PUD would be pointless but not (as) painful. And then, as we sat around in the sun, a guy came rocking up to us and asked if we wanted trail magic. It turned out to be Jim Gregory, the proprietor of Boots Off hostel, just a few minutes walk away, and soon after that he disappeared in his car and returned with a series of hot pizzas. We wandered up to the hostel to eat the pizzas. It looked like a great place and one we'd happily have enjoyed spending time in if it wasn't halfway through the day and with Bob's Kincora hostel only a few hours away.With a much lighter pack, I headed up the Mother Of All PUDs and found it was indeed as pointless as pitched. But it was at least pleasantly graded and I made fast time back down to Laurel Creek, where many of those who'd hitched to Hampton had walked up the creek from town, avoiding the PUD entirely.I met them as 14 of them were settling in around a fire. Dirt had been through about an hour earlier -- she was hiking ahead to meet a friend from university who lived nearby -- but 2am was still there, seduced by the Second Breakfast Club's exuberant atmosphere.They'd brought up a prodigious amount of alcohol and were even plying everyone -- even passing hikers like me -- with smores cooked over the campfire.And they are a fun group. In other situations I might have been tempted to take a short day but slackpacking meant I didn't have either a tent or sleeping bag, compelling me to make it to Kincora hostel that night.The rest of the way was fun, taking the low route through a gorge that would be unfeasible in even the slightest rain, and then seeing Laurel Falls, which was the best we'd seen for some time. After a steep climb up some rock steps, the trail then followed an old railway bed, making it both fast and easy -- until a place where there was clearly once a trestle bridge that no longer existed. Even despite the subsequent descent to river level and back up the far side, I was grateful for the easy terrain for the second part of the day. I rocked up to Kincora hostel right on dark.Bob Peoples was chatting amiably with Sriracha and Sweetblood on the porch and had been for four hours. I soon understood why when Bob started telling stories of his decades of supporting the trail and the 20,000-plus people who'd stayed at his hostel. To give just one example, the way he helped organise everyone at the ALDHA conference after the publication of A Walk In The Woods to wear "Bill Bryson is a candy ass!" shirts He'd bought the place specifically for its proximity to the trail and back in the days when thru-hikers only numbered a few hundred a year, Kincora hostel was a rare treat and a must-stay location. Now there is much more competition from the new wave of hostels, such as Boots Off.I'd heard that the place had gone downhill since Bob's wife died several years back and that there were lots of cats stuck inside and three raccoons living under the sink. All that proved to be true and the acrid smell of cat pee when I entered the dorm room was initially overpowering. Bob was pretty sanguine about this -- "It's $5 a night, so if they don't want to stay, they don't have to" -- which I suspect meant he had become desensitised to the full extent of the smell. It says something about Bob's company that it was still worth staying here.Life is good, albeit with a fairly strong ammonia smell...AT fact of the day: Jim the hostel owner had the usual coterie of unusual staff hanging around the place -- AT hostels, we discovered, acted as a kind of lost dogs' home -- and one of these was Twisted, an older guy claiming to be a seven-times AT thru-hiker -- including having done the Roller Coaster in northern Virginia a dozen times -- and also a triple crowner. But something about his manner raised my BS-detection instincts honed by 35 years in journalism. Maybe he has done what he said he had but I suspect we've met the first example of an AT phenomenon: people who claim to be hikers but who are really just homeless exaggerators... Time will tell.