Day 38 Zero Day No 4 - Damascus

Today's miles 0.  AT miles 467.6

We had a great breakfast this morning, we wandered over to Mojoe's Trail side Coffee House.  Iron Man and Extra Miles were in there already so we joined them.  Nigel had to try an English Joe, an English muffin with egg, cheese and bacon and I had blueberry pancakes with syrup.  The pancakes serving was huge, 4 large pancakes with big juicy blueberries, Nigel had one of them, they were absolutely delicious though.

After breakfast we did our next four days food resupply, a couple of Mountain House meals from the outfitters and the remainder from Dollar General.  We bumped into Trish and Jesse in the street and had a quick chat, it was good to see them, albeit briefly, we'd not seen them since the Smokies. 

We returned to the Hikers Inn to sort and repack all our trail food.  The Germans were moving out of the bunk room and up into the house area where we, Iron Man & Extra Miles are staying, nicer rooms, a little bit more expensive but worth it.  Its a fantastic hostel, the owners Lee and Paul are very friendly, we highly recommend it. We also got our AT passport stamped.  I forgot to say yesterday the Blue Blaze cafe also has an AT stamp although it's not listed if anyone's behind us is collecting them too.

By 1pm we were hungry again, we tried Pork Bellies BBQ for lunch, another great newly opened food place we would recommend.  The Saturday special was fried catfish, fries and hush puppies (a bit like a small fried onion donut ball) so we shared that with a basket of BBQ ribs. Both were delicious and it was like having English 'fish and chips'!  After all that food it was time for an afternoon nap. Nigel and the boys had a beer on the porch.  The rain also came down heavy this afternoon as forecast so glad we got our shopping done in the morning.

We went back to Pork Bellies again in the evening for dinner, the Germans, Iron Man and Extra Miles wanted to try it out.  We didn't mind returning the food was really delicious again and their BBQ sauces were amazing.  Paul the hostel owner kindly drove us over there in his truck as it was still raining heavily. Another great evening had by all.

Tomorrow we head for the Grayson Highlands, we've been looking forward to this section of the trail.  The weather forecast is good for the next five days too, cold tomorrow but then getting a lot warmer and sunnier again.

Day 37 Abingdon Gap shelter to Damascus

Today's miles 10.4.  AT miles 467.6

A much milder day, it was forecast for rain this morning but we never really got any, just a couple of very light showers first thing which was a bonus.  We left camp just after nine and walked with Iron Man and Extra Miles for a while, both great guys and good company.  They walk a bit faster than us so they went on ahead after a while. 

It was an easy 10 miles this morning, mainly downhill, just a few small ups and the snow had just about all gone which also made walking easier.  We crossed the Tennessee/Virginia state line today, we are now in Virginia, our fourth state.  Virginia state has the longest section of the AT trail, about a quarter of the whole trail runs just through Virginia.  American hikers are often known to get the 'Virginia Blues' because it takes so long to get to the next state.  We're not really counting the states so hopefully that won't apply to us.

We reached Damascus just after 12:30 passing its AT 'welcome' sign.  Damascus is a very hiker friendly town and in mid May has a huge hiker festival over a few days called 'Trail Days'.  Lots of hikers old and current attend.  Unfortunately we probably won't be able to come back for it as we'll be too far down (or up) the trail by then.  We will need to be well past the half way mark by mid May to be on schedule for finishing before our visa runs out.  We are taking another zero day tomorrow in Damascus.  One, because we had originally planned to anyway and two, because its forecast rain and possibly more snow all day tomorrow.

We are staying at the Hikers Inn in a private room, a great hostel owned by Lee and Paul (Skink), a Belgium guy and an ex 2010 thru hiker.  Iron Man and Extra Miles are here too as well as Meeple and Odysseus.  They do a laundry service so we handed over our laundry basket of smelly clothes. Once showered and changed we headed out for some lunch to the Blue Blaze cafe. A big place but we were the only ones in there, apart from Iron Man getting a takeaway pizza. They were doing lots of renovations getting ready for Trail Days.  Good food though, we had a side salad and a Blue Blaze burger and fries. Nigel tried three of their beers, then had to have an afternoon nap!

The Germans arrived about 6pm, it was great that they made it.  Once they'd got showered the three of them, Iron Man, Extra Miles and ourselves all went out together to the Blue Blaze cafe for dinner. We had a lovely evening with good company, a great group of trail friends. We headed back to our hostel about half past nine, a late night for us all!

Day 36 Vandeventer Shelter to Abingdon Gap Shelter

Today's miles 22.7.  AT miles 457.2

Another mileage record today, I'm amazed at how many miles we've managed to cover in the last two days in the snow.  That rest day at Black Bear must have done us the world of good. Today's distance was achievable because we remained relatively level for the AT, walking along a ridge with lots of smaller ups and downs between 3525 and 4225ft so no big long ascents or descents.

We left the shelter at 8:50, behind everyone else.  We're always the first up and last to leave!  Our boots were frozen this morning, not very pleasant to put on but they didn't take too long to thaw, about 20 minutes of walking.  There was still plenty of snow around, in fact it was even deeper than yesterday in sections along the ridge line where it had blown into small drifts a foot deep and quite hard going in places.  Cloudy to start, it remained cool in the morning and took until midday for the sun come out and get warm enough to start melting the snow.

We passed a monument, the Nick Grindstaff Monument.  We were the first to visit it as there were no other footprints in the snow, everyone else must have whizzed past either not interested, or more likely, heads down and not noticed it.  On the gravestone it said ' lived alone, suffered alone, died alone'.  Poor guy.  We don't know who Nick Grindstaff is but somebody thought enough of him to build a big monument.

From the monument it was downhill for a while.  We walked over quite a few wooden foot bridges all linked together, glad that the snow had cleared off them a bit.  We then left the woods and came to some open pastureland where we followed an 'handicap-accessible trail' for about half a mile over the fields.  Back into the woods we reached Double Springs shelter.  It was ten past three when we arrived at the shelter, 14.4 miles in and we had to decide if we carry on another 8.3 miles to the next shelter as planned.  It would mean a late finish but a shorter 10 mile day into Damascus tomorrow rather than an 18 mile day when it was forecast for rain.  We refilled our water bottles from the stream had a quick snack and decided to carry on, using the weather to our advantage while we had the chance as it was a lovely sunny evening.

About a mile and a half before we reached the shelter we passed a 'Prescribed Burn Area', we could smell it before we saw it, it must have been burnt quite recently. It lasted all the way to the Abingdon Gap shelter were we arrived at 6:45pm in really good time.  The paths got easier as a lot of the snow had melted, there were still clumps of snow drift left in places though.  Iron Man and Extra Miles were already there plus a dad and two sons out for the weekend.  It was only a small 5 person shelter so we pitched our tent.  It wasn't supposed to go below freezing so not such a cold night as last night.

We passed our German friends in the morning but they never caught up with us again the rest of the day.  They didn't arrive at our shelter either as planned so we assume they stopped at Double Springs shelter.  Hopefully we'll see them in Damascus tomorrow, we can't lose them again already.  We both agreed it was a great moral boost to see old friends again from earlier down the trail.

Day 35 Black Bear Resort to Vandeventer Shelter

Today's miles 17.5.  AT miles 434.5

We accomplished Plan A!  There was still lots of snow on the ground from the previous days snowfall, a good 6-7 inches.   After a slow start though the sun came out and it was a glorious cold but clear sunny day.  We left Black Bear resort at 8:50 and walked the 0.4 miles back down the road to rejoin the Appalachian Trail.  As soon as we got on the trail we hit our first snowy obstacle, snow laden rhododendrons blocking the trail.  Nigel had to do a lot of rhododendron bashing with his walking pole, I think he quite enjoyed it.  As soon as he hit them the snow fell off and the trees bounced back up, clearing the way again.  We were the first to walk this section of the trail in the snow, there were no other footprints until 2.7 miles in where the side trail coming up from Hampton joined the AT.

We passed Laurel Falls, a very impressive waterfall on a very rocky path which lead us around the river on a rocky ledge, impassible when the water is high.  It was then uphill just over 1700ft to Pond Flats, and straight back down again.  Quite hard growing and slow progress in the snow.  At the bottom we reached Watauga Lake and Shook Branch Recreation Area where we bumped into our three German friends, Wall E, Milk Monster and Pillow (formerly Amazing Ant).  It was great to see them again, we had not seen them since Low Gap shelter back at AT mile 43!  We walked with them for a while up to Watauga Dam then split up for a bit but ended up staying at the same shelter, Vandeventer Shelter.  We arrived at the shelter about 6:20pm.  Pillow had overtaken us on the trail and arrived before us, Wall E and Milk Monster arrived about 15 minutes later.  There were two other American thru hikers, Iron Man and Extra Miles also at the shelter, nice guys from New York and New Jersey.  There was still lots of snow of the ground so we all slept in the shelter.  Seven of us in a shelter for six, but it was fine.

It was a very cold night, probably around -3/-4°C.  Our coldest night camping so far.  The last four nights have been really cold but we managed to plan well and sleep indoors for three of them. For the first time I am writing this blog post the evening after.  I usually always write them the same day but it was too cold last night.  It was the first night we needed to wear our extra warm Buffalo mittens rather than just a thin pair of gloves.  We were warm enough in our sleeping bags though with extra layers on.