Date: 2004-05-14
To: Trail Days
Miles today: 0.0

This entry will cover three days with an emphasis on my attendance at Trail Days, the annual festival for hikers of the Appalachian Trail. I got a lift to the festival from a young man and former hiker named Squirrel. We drove up to Damascus, Virginia, the site of the festival, accompanied by Knuckles, JP, and another hiker. We arrived mid morning to a sodden field which was filling up with dozens of attendees and their tents. I walked around with my backpack on, seeking a spot to erect my teepee tarp. The mood was upbeat and friendly within this temporary community of hikers.The field troubled me as a sleeping location because it looked like a potential quagmire in the event of rain. I chose a spot for my tarp away from the field and near a stream. Here, the ground around my tarp was less sodden and was slightly higher than the ground elsewhere. If it rained, I would hopefully remain dry. Several other people were camping near me.Near his field were some booths manned by vendors. One of them performed some maintenance work on my trail runner shoes. He told me the shoes were taking a beating and would soon need replacement. Another vendor made some cosmetic changes to my backpack.The official events occurred in the downtown and along a nearby grassy walkway. Woe, a hiker that I have become friendly with, had visited a booth where a woman was giving free buzz cuts to thru hikers. His head was shaved almost as close as a military recruit at a boot camp. He urged me to get the same treatment. In a fit of lunacy, I sat down and watched almost all of the hair on my head fall to the ground in front of me. During the day, all kinds of musical entertainers performed at a gazebo. On one late afternoon, some cloggers performed a dance number. Several hours later, when darkness had fallen, a different kind of entertainment occurred at the hikers' campground. To the sound of pounding drums, hikers in large numbers danced and gyrated around a huge campfire. I too stepped into this mix of swirling bodies and made a few rotations around the fire. I spent the first night sleeping in a demo model of a backpacking hammock. On separate occasions, a soldier on leave named Sergeant Rock, an avid hammock user, showed me some basic tips about hammock use. On the following day, a hiker named Hammock Hanger gave me a detailed tutorial. I purchased a hammock and a small tarp to shield it from inclement weather. The hammock will hopefully enable me to choose camping spots with greater ease. In high elevations, it has been difficult finding flat spots to sleep upon. A hammock affixed to a couple of tree trunks will enable me to choose a greater variety of sleeping sites in the woods.The most popular event was the hikers¢ parade through the heart of the downtown. The former hikers of the Appalachian Trail paraded in small formations based on the year they completed the trail. I hiked in the last formation called ¢2,000 Mile Dreamers."This parade was about more than a bunch of hikers walking down a street. It was a huge water fight between the hikers and the local spectators. As we made our way downtown, townsfolk on either sides of the street pelted us with water balloons and shot water at us with toy water pistols¢the fancy ones that squirt out water at high speeds. We countered with similar weapons. The parade reached a head when a fireman on top of a fire truck started hosing down some hikers. The hikers counterattacked against the man with a barrage of water balloons and squirt guns. On the last evening of the festival, it rained hard for a while. At first this development was treated by some hikers as a source of fun. When claps of thunder occurred, spontaneous shouting and exhortations would resound around the campground where people were hunkered in their tents. But after a while, the rain took its toll. Some areas of the campground, particularly the field, turned into a mud bowl. People were forced to move their tents or sleep in puddles of water. I remained relatively dry in my teepee tarp. Late at night¢3:50 a.m. to be exact¢a crazed man made his way through the mud and darkness to the immediate vicinity of my tarp. He shouted, "I've got mud up my mother f' (expletive) ass crack!"... In a loud conversational tone, he shared his frustrations with his friends who were the occupants of the tent beside me. He had apparently fallen into the mud, lost his shoes, and was cold, miserable, probably drunk, and frustrated. Inside the tent, I heard a woman complain that her Nutter Butters were soaked and she could not find a dry one.This morning, Iand several hikers that I am friendly with paid sixteen bucks apiece for van transportation back here to Hot Springs, North Carolina. Tomorrow, my hike will resume with a long stretch of trail ahead of me. It will be 75 miles of hiking to Erwin, Tennessee. I will carry five days of food, which means my backpack will be heavy in the beginning.