The hostel was about 50 miles outside of Damascus Virginia which is where trail days was being held. Trail days is pretty much a three day party that the town holds every year for the hikers. Everything in the town pretty much opened up for us and was wonderful. But more on that later, all you need to know is for days and weeks leading up to it hikers from about a 100 mile radius of damascus plan on how to be there for trail days. We wanted to get to damascus and pass it before trail days started so when it was over we could get a ride up to where we left off and it wouldn't be as crowded as hiking out of the city with everyone else. So we had 50 miles to get into town so naturally we did 10 miles, 21 miles, 19 miles, in three days. (O my friends have corrected me.. it was 10.4, 21.5 and 18.5.... I stand corrected) They were some big days but they were fairly uneventful. On one of the days tho me and austin were walking along fairly quickly when I suddenly came to a complete stop. Austin almost ran right into me and was really confused. The reason I stopped was because there was a 3 foot black snack stretched out down the trail. I had to back peddle little so I didn't step on it. Luckily we walked up on the tail end. I used my trekking pole and poked it in the tail and encouraged it to move.Austin chased it little more until it got far enough away. And then less then 10 minutes later I stepped right next to one on the trail and I didn't know it was there until it scurried away. It scared me and I jumped pretty high and austin just said "do I need to walk in front!" Other then that the only exciting thing was we did cross into Virginia! That means we are done with 3 states :) (see photo from other post) Too bad we wont cross our next state line for 700 miles. It is a third of the trial..
When we got into damascus we called a number in the guide book and asked if he had room for us to stay at what we thought was a hostel or motel like place. But after I talked to him on the phone I got the impression that it was more like a shack in his backyard, so we weren't quite sure what to expect. It turned out it was a finished guest house that was just a tiny room with a full bathroom. All it had was a full sized bed and a bunk-bed set. It was wonderful! It was the cutest place ever. It barely fit all of us and our gear but was perfect! They told us if we stayed the another night they would give us a great deal. So we stayed another day to figure out what we were going to do about trail days. On our zero we mainly just took care of errands and hung out at the outfitter. We also decided that it would be easier to skip ahead on the trail and hike southbound into damascus instead of hike out and try to hitch-hike back. So we paid 8 dollars each and they dropped us off 40 miles up trail and we planned on three days back into town which would put us there right in time.
The first day was beautiful! We hiked through this section called the Grayson highlands where there are wild ponies that roam. So we were walking along and we just came up on big groups of ponies. They were really friendly and loved to lick all the salt off of us so they would walk right up to us. I will try to post the video I took but no promises.
The second day we planned on hiking 18.5 miles and then the next day get up and do 8 more miles into damascus. I started to get a pretty bad shin splint right before lunch so I was walking quite a bit slower then normal but we still had plenty of time to make the shelter. We stopped at the last shelter before the one we were going to stay at for the night and started talking to some other hiker friends of ours. They gave us the idea to push on and go into town that night. We knew it was going to be too long of a hike to do that night but the AT met up with a bike trail 2 miles from where we were. Some guys that worked at the outfitter had told us about the bike trail and said we should give it a shot cause it was prettier the the AT. The mileage was adding little more miles then the actual AT but it was flat and not rocky. We heard that the outfitter in town would come met you on the trail and give you bikes to rent to ride in on the bike trail. So we got my phone out and had absolutely no signal. Austin and gravity decided to walk a mile back to the road to see if they could get a signal, but after walking all the way there and a half a mile down the road and back they still got no signal and came back. All the guys were still so pumped about getting into town that night that by the time we made it the next two miles and met up with the bike trail they had already cooked up another plan. By the time I got there they had already put their packs down and asked if I wasn't carrying any weight would I be able to make it. How could I turn down three excited determined faces? So they took everything out of my pack and split it between the three of them (austin taking the most of it) all I had left was my pack, some water and my polls. We hiked the rest of the miles in on the bike trail which was beautiful! We had to stop mid way for dinner then kept pushing on. We hiked probably 3 hours in the dark with just our headlamps and by that point I was using my polls more as crutches then polls. But the guys were great and austin and phlegm walked slow with me into town while gravity hurried on ahead to figure out were we could sleep for the night. We made it into town at around 11:30 and it was after midnight by the time we were all set up in our tents. The totally mirage for the day was 27 for me and phlegm and over 30 for gravity and austin with there extra walk to find service, plus all the guys were carrying alot more weight then they normally do with all of my stuff. It was probably harder then I should have pushed it but I knew we were going to have plenty of rest days to recover with trails days starting. It was and exciting if not difficult adventure. And since we made it into town Wednesday night we were able to get the meal tickets they passed out Thursday morning at 8:30. So everything worked out great.
Ill have to tell you about trail days in another post. Got to save phone battery! But I will say that my shin splints healed wonderfully during trail days! So no worries :)
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