Date: 2018-08-24
From: Damascus

To: Lost Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 15.8
Weather: scattered clouds

I'm off on another section hike in my quest to finish the AT. This one takes me to southwestern Virginia, an unexpectedly long stretch of trail between Damascus, near the Tennessee border, and Daleville, north of Roanoke. 259 miles in all, about half of the AT in Virginia and longer than any other state except Maine, which is about 270. It passes through the Grayson Highlands, the Blue Ridge, and ridgelines bordering West Virginia. Near the end I'll pass Virginia's Triple Crown of hiking destinations - Dragon's Tooth, McAfee Knob, and Tinker Cliffs. I'm hoping along the way to visit some of the secluded farms that have opened their doors as hiker hostels. Once finished, I'll be done Virginia except for a 40 mile section around Waynesboro. After numerous trips this year it will be satisfying to cross off this state and make it number 11 on my completed list. Georgia, NC, and Tennessee will remain.Two months ago I sectioned from Daleville north to Reeds Gap near Waynesboro. That was a very humid and very wet week. But par for the course this season. I also hit plenty of rain in the White Mountains earlier this month with my oldest son, Phantump, and in Shenandoah back in June with my daughter Snickers. But the weather looks much more promising here for the next few days. A nice change of pace.I drive down to Daleville from my home west of Philadelphia, a five and a half hour drive that starts before 5 am. After grabbing a snack I park the car at Valley Cleaners, right next to where the AT crosses Route 220. Homer Witcher, my shuttle driver, tells me they don't mind hikers using their lot and the car will be safer here than at the park-and-ride lot just down the road. Works for me. Homer pulls up right on time in a small sedan. He's thin and gaunt and white-haired. At first it seems like he's infirm, but I soon learn he's anything but. On the way down I hear how his wife Therese came home one day exasperated with work and convinced him to thruhike the trail with her to reduce their stress. And take their 11-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son too! That was sixteen years ago, and they all finished. Now they spend hundreds of hours a year maintaining a hundred-mile section of trail south of Daleville. That includes upkeep on sixteen shelters, such as relocating the privies regularly and digging new pits. Homer is seventy-six, but seems to have the energy of a man half his age. He ran his first marathon two years ago, in under four hours, beating his athletic daughter (who is currently hiking the Long Trail and working on running half-marathons in every state). His aerospace engineer son also does trail maintenance in his spare time. Every anniversary Homer and his wife hike up to McAfee Knob where they were married, and every birthday he runs a half-marathon.The two hours down I-81 pass quickly and soon we are cruising down Laurel Avenue in Damascus. It's a busy and colorful little town, but not quite what I expected. There are relatively few buildings and few are historical or compactly arranged like the Main Streets of so many small towns. Under the new paint it still looks like the old logging town that nearly died fifty years ago, and revived thanks to tourism from the AT and the Virginia Creeper Trail bike path. Bike rental outlets dot the town and bikers are everywhere. Not surprisingly, there are no hikers in sight. This time of year the northbounders are long gone and the early southbounders are only just starting to trickle through. I walk from the town hall, facing across from a wood frame building under construction that will be an Appalachian Trail Center. It's not clear whether it's a project of the town or the Appalachian Trail Conservancy which maintains regional centers in other states. Damascus is frequently viewed as the premier trail town on the AT, so it certainly seems overdue. At the east end of town I stop for lunch at Mojo's, a last hurrah before entering the wilderness for three days. I've been wanting to try Mojo's since reading Hungry Cat's journal this spring. He was stuck tending to an injured foot in Damascus for over a week and seems to have eaten here three times a day. My reuben is tasty, but the ambience is not the small town diner I expected. Rather it's an upscale sandwich shop geared to the tourist trade (all cyclists at the moment).The AT follows the Virginia Creeper gravel bike path out of town before veering off to climb a mountain while the cyclists continue along the river where the old lumber rail line ran. The weather is perfect for hiking. Slightly cool, low humidity, blue skies. I climb through rich green hemlock, maple, oak, and rhododendron forests. This is entirely second-growth forest, having been clear cut in the early twentieth century when this was the largest lumber-producing county in the nation.Suddenly I'm startled by a large black rat snack slithering across the trail, trying to get away from me as my feet flail to avoid it. I'm almost as startled a few minutes later to see a southbounder who looks (and smells) like he might be a thruhiker. But he's gone before I can ask. I'm surprised any have gotten this far since the opening of Katahdin on June 1st. Other than him, I see two dayhikers and a number of cyclists. Late in the day I pass two southbound section hikers trying to suck water out of a very slow and sad looking stream.After sixteen miles I stop at Lost Mountain Shelter and am not surprised to have the place to myself. I can't remember ever having a shelter to myself. There have been warnings about bear activity and food stealing north of here so I take care in hanging the bear bag well away from the shelter. It takes some time to find a tree with a branch strong enough and at the right height to hang a bag. I settle for a deadfall suspended horizontally between two trees.After some potatoes and noodles it's off to bed. A full moon is rising in the east. The night is chilly but hopefully that promises another great day for hiking.