Date: 2015-04-08
From: Vandeventer

To: The Place, Damascus
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

We got up this morning at about 5 and started to eat breakfast and break down our gear. Like always I was the last one out of the shelter and didn't get on the trail and going until about 6. It was still pretty dark out when I hit the trail and had to use my headlamp which luckily I had put a new battery into the night before. Hiking that early in the morning is pretty awesome since you really get to see everything come to life as the light slowly creeps in. There was still some fog cover so I didn't get to see a sunrise but I was happy enough when the sun had finally burned through the cloud cover by mid morning and I started to get warm. I ran into Houdini when I got to the first shelter and he was walking a little hobbled from an achilles tendon injury that had started to flare up that morning. Luckily he ran into the Nazi Surfer Snow Zombie who had some safety supplies which pulled him back into shape to hike some more. I took off again and was feeling pretty confident about my speed and mileage since I wasn't more than 15 minutes behind the rest of the group when I pulled into the second shelter. I stopped for a break at what I figured to be the halfway point,took off my boots and lifted up my feet for about 20 minutes to let them dry off and drain a little bit before the next part of my journey. Up to this point I hadn't even done a twenty so I knew today was gonna be a hard stretch for me and I wanted to try and keep my body ready for it. I also tried to prevent blisters in my soaking wet boats by changing my soaks every 10 miles and luckily I had the soaks to do it. When I hit Abingdon Gap I was elated since my body still felt like it was in great shape and ready for another 10 miles so after a snack I was back on the trail at about 5 pm.The last ten miles weren't as bad as I thought they would be and I ran into one of the guys I'd started out with in the morning who was laying down for a little nap. I told him we weren't too far out and that we could still get there before the place closed down for the night. I kept on and ran into the Tennessee Virginia boarder. Home Sweet Home. After about an hour on my own he had caught up with me and he was cruising at a solid 3 mph and I kept up for probably 2 miles before I couldn't keep pace anymore.As darkness started to fall I went to turn on my headlight only to discover the battery was near dead and only had the red light function left. The last mile was kind of difficult between the lack of light and then the near blinding light from the local stadium which shines through the woods like a laser. When I finally had made my way through the swtich backs and into someones back yard I was the guy I'd been trudging down with a little while ago resting on a bench. I asked if he knew where it was and he didn't have a clue so we decided to follow the blazes cause we knew it was somewhere off the trail in town.I was thoroughly disappointed with the town as we walked by shut down store front after shut down store front. It looked almost like a ghost town and the only shops that seemed to be open were the various gear shops sprinkling "Main Street." We hit a church and luckily I saw Neon Mountains walking by on his way to grab beer, we had a quick chat about how crappy the town was and what a let down it was. He told us where the place was and we headed to grab a bunk before it closed and he went to grab the beer.The place was disappointing but only because of the guy running the place as care taker. He claimed to be an old thru-hiker but he just seemed like a fat old disgruntled man to me. Yes we came in late but we were pretty proud of our 33 mile accomplishment and he only had smart-ass comments to make about the decision and us. Everyone else was stoaked to see us and thrilled to see we'd made it in and started bringing us all kinds of goodies since they'd been able to go into town earlier and had gotten their bellies filled by the folks over at Woodchuck Hostel.After refueling for a bit and being showered in goodies I went out back for a beer with everybody. The caretaker told us if we were too loud coming back in that he'd kick us out, the dude was a complete and total dick. I didn't hang out drinking too long I was exhausted after the long haul of the day and went inside after only having a beer. It was probably one of the best rolling rocks I've ever had. Getting to sleep that night was kind of hard with how sore my body was I struggled to find a comfortable position and stay asleep very long.