Damascus, VA: the friendliest town on the trail! Unfortunately we spent the first half of our day into this friendly town trying fruitlessly to find a place to sleep for the night. In the end, the five of us (Redwood, Lego, Enzed, Cascade and I) split up for the night. Redwood, Lego and I went to a donation-based hostel called The Place. It was essentially a four-sided shelter with individual beds and a semi-shower. Still, it was cheap and a place to sleep!

A ton of hikers were in town for the night, so we all met up for a rambunctious evening of pizza and beers. While we (mostly Enzed and I) may have partaken in a few too many beers, a great time was had by all! Today I passed my time being as lazy as possible, slowly getting laundry and food shopping done until by 3 I was sprawled out in the grass reading a book. Zero days in town are definitely the best part of this hike! ;)

Getting to Damascus was quite an adventure! We left Erwin in a freezing downpour and were soaked by the time we reached the shelter. That night was cold, rainy and windy and sleeping in my hammock was not a great idea... We shortened the next day to a 9-miler so we could dry ALL of our belongings out around the fire that morning. Another remarkable day came shortly after that when we did 23 miles up, over and well beyond Roan Mt. It was long and exhausting, and I was in a terrible mood by nightfall. Just 24 hours later, we "slept" through a rain storm with 65+ mph winds! Finally, we made it into a hostel just outside of Hampton, TN called Kincora run by Bob Peoples.

Consensus among AT hikers is that Bob Peoples is the friendliest person on the trail. Shelters for miles out of Kincora are tagged with graffiti like "When Bob Peoples stays here, mice bring him food" or "the AT took 6 months off to hike Bob Peoples", and- my personal favorite- "Damascus took a zero in Bob Peoples". All of these sayings are hilarious to long-distance hikers, by the way, though they may not make much sense to others.

Tomorrow I begin my last 3 weeks on the trail. With hopes of making it all the way to Shenandoah National Park, I'm trying not to take any more zeros after today. That's extremely upsetting to me on a moral level, but I would like to get as far north as possible in the next 21 days! It's hard to believe these 2 months in the wilderness are so close to over...

“You need special shoes for hiking – and a bit of a special soul as well.” — Emme Woodhull-Bäche