Nan's 2014 Appalachian Trail Journal

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May 19, 2014

By Drag’n Fly aka Nan

5/7 Day 39. Did 16 miles, camped in the forest. Sixteen miles is just too long a day although the terrain is getting a little easier. Hiked along a jeep path for quite a while and along the Elk River where we sat and had a nice break. It has been pretty warm the last few days, the wind has settled. A large group of very senior men, 39 of them, passed us doing a hike. They hike in for 1 ½ hours on a trail and then hike back out the same trail so no one gets left behind.

5/8 Hiked to Kincora Hostel, Hampton, TN, mile 417.0. Picked up resupply and took a shower. I was surprised to have my brother, Tom, also known as Whitey, show up at Kincora. He had come down to intercept us and do a few days of hiking. After going out to a Lone Star Steakhouse for burgers, we packed up and hiked into Laurel Falls to camp for the night. Whitey was able to camp with us but had to go back to Blacksburg when we set off the next day. I was able to get rid of some extra clothes that I no longer need by having Whitey take them home with him. That will lighten my pack a little for the next section to Damascus. VA.

Kincora is a very, very, very rustic hostel. Shower was acceptable but that is as far as I would go. Met a very large man, 7 ft. tall, who is just starting his hike. Of course, I had to have a picture taken of us standing together. Can you guess what his trail name is? “Little”, of course.

5/9 Day 41, mile 429.8. After leaving Whitey at Laurel Falls, we had a 1,722 ft. climb over a no-name mountain. We camped with Ho Bo, Cadi, Sweep, Major, Rudy, and Daddy Long Legs. Rudy is making a documentary for Alzheimer awareness and Daddy Long Legs is his photographer/videographer. Rudy’s grandmother had Alzheimers.

Everyone talked about meeting for the night at Vandeventer Shelter but Freckles and I gave that idea up when we saw a nice camp site at the bottom of a three mile climb. Neither of us had slept good last night. Too much partying. Whitey had brought a bottle of wine and we stayed up late (9:30!!!) drinking and talking. Today we walked around Watauga Lake and over the dam. Sweep and Major decided to join us for camping. So, the four of us fell 4.7 miles short of our goal.

5/10 Day 42, 438.3 miles. Still averaging a little over 10 miles a day. Not enough to get to Katahdin (the north end of the AT. It’s in Maine) without flipping. I had hoped to go straight thru but if we do not pick up the daily mileage that won’t happen. I did not feel good today. Really hit the wall as far as energy goes so it was another short day-only 8.5 miles. Found a nice camp spot with a water source so we stopped early. Rained most of the day.

5/11 Day 43. Start of seventh week on the trail. Mile 451.4 with 13.1 miles today. I felt a little stronger today after a big night’s sleep but now Freckles is feeling a little punky. It rained in the night but was clear and sunny all day after the fog lifted about 10:30. The terrain is pretty level here relative to what we have been doing. We got almost out to TN 91 when we came upon a metal box with a sign to “Help yourself to cold drinks and treats” but when we checked, there was nothing in it. The sign said the trail magic was courtesy of a local church and that they would pray for all the hikers to be safe.

So, finding no trail magic there, we continued on to the road thinking surely someone would have trail magic for Mothers’ Day. But, no luck so we just started on our lunches. A van came into the lot and an older (?) mature man got out. He was walking across the lot when he looked at us and said, “I know you. You’re Freckles.” It seems that he saw the AT Trail Journal and, since he is partial to redheads, he is following our journal. He hardly gave me a look. Guess he doesn’t like women with white hair. His trail name is Rancid. He did give us cold drinks and tell us lots about his adventures of section hiking the AT.

We also came upon a bunch of thru hikers camped in a field waiting to hike into Damascus for Trail Days which starts this week. The camp is called “Camp Riff Raff”. The fellow who set it up had a tattoo on his leg that said “Camp Riff Raff” and a picture of a skeleton. They did have pretzels, cookies, and cold drinks.

We will get into Damascus tomorrow but plan to keep hiking north until Friday night or Saturday morning when Freckles’ husband, Rich, will pick us up to go into Damascus for the festivities. We also passed a monument grave for Nick Grindstaff. His monument said, “Lived alone, suffered alone, died alone.”

5/12 Day 44, mile 467.1. Made it into Damascus today but it was a struggle. Neither Freckles nor I are feeling well so we just pushed on to get to town. The weather was warm and sunny and this is a really nice section of trail but we just had our heads down to get into town. We did pass a lot of pink lady slippers. In fact, I saw more today that I have ever seen-large patches along the trail and back into the woods. We were able to get a room at Dave’s Hostel, operated by Mt. Rogers Outfitters for $20 a night for the two of us. We took our laundry to Hikers Inn and left it. They will do it for $5.00. Had something to eat and, since we are both not feeling well, we crashed.

Decided to take a zero day to try to get my pep back. Freckles is feeling better but I am not. I just wanted tea and toast for breakfast and maybe an egg. Had to try three different places before I could find just a simple thing like toast.

We were able to stay one more night at Dave’s. Hope we can get back on the trail tomorrow. I may get bed sores if I lay around much longer. There are a lot of people starting to gather for Trail Days.

Until later, Happy Trail Days!
Drag’n Fly is signing out.

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