6/3 to 6/10 90.2 miles

It took a couple weeks for my left foot and ankle to start working properly again. Two weeks of doing nothing but short limps around trying to get prepped for getting back on the AT. Then one morning I could walk without limping. Catwater is back!

I kind of love travel logistics and I really hate red eye flights. I flew Alaska Air to Atlanta, overnighted and got a Delta flight to TRI. I detest ATL, only been through there for international flights previously. Guess I could add that I detest most big airports, I ought to get paid to write and post proper signage in the airports of the world. As it is, I expected airport security to apprehend the tall old lady dropping F bombs as she exclaimed about the ridiculously inept signage at ATL. Good thing I’m a hiker, you have to walk miles in that airport to find baggage claim.

I’d contacted Unicoi shuttle company back East that helps Appalachian Trail hikers, and lined up a ride to Damascus. I booked a lovely room at Dancing Bear Inn in Damascus for a couple nights to get over jet lag.

I still have Waitin’ On (Freddie)’s phone number from Broken Fiddle Hostel last fall, so I called, arranged a short 15 mile slackpack from south of Damascus to make sure my foot was going to be OK on trail. I love that hostel, clean, great guys working there, good conversation on the covered porch where seemingly everybody but me smokes something. So I walked back in from the trail and spent a cozy night in the same room I’d been in last year. Freddie drove me back south the next morning.

I didn’t get a photo but the first NOBO I met was Chopper and her rescued and adorable leashed kitten Subway. That’s where Chopper found the little abandoned kitten who now cruises the trail cuddled in Chopper’s front sling. I stopped for the night at a shelter, camping as far away as possible.

The next day I was still low energy, no appetite, so I contacted Boot’s Off Hostel and got a ride a few miles before I would have walked in. I have a lovely little shed/cabin with portapotties nearby. They do a town shuttle every day at 5 pm so you can go to the store or grab McDonald’s or Subway for dinner.

I slept great that night for the first time in a week and did a super easy slackpack the next day. Amazingly I saw Survivor heading NOBO as I was going SOBO. He was one of the hikers I finished Katahdin with last August and the guy who hitched us a ride into Millinocket after the other hostel failed to pick us up on time. I kinda forgot he planned on doing the second half of the AT this year. We laughed and chatted for a bit then headed off in opposite directions!

Lucky Moon at Boots Off easily convinced me to zero the next day because of the 90% chance of thundershowers. And so I was happy to wake up to relentless rain all day while I was dry and inside. Still have trouble with no appetite, argh.

I got to give a guy his trail name the last night at Boot’s Off. These NOBOs I’m seeing are behind “the bubble” but there are still plenty of people to form a hiking group with. Some hikers are way faster and keep passing so they stay solo, some are just insecure about their social skills or identity or whatever and avoid bonding. Anyway, I started talking with young guy, Jin, heavily accented English but 10 years resident in Ohio working on Amazon robotics. He confessed he was totally clueless about hiking and the AT but here he is 400 miles in to it, mad respect! Anyhow in his first couple of days, he didn’t want to mess up and found himself trying to find a campsite in the dark at 9:30 pm, kinda wandering around lost until he finally found the trail with his headlamp and camped. I loved this story, so honest. I turned to the other people in the room and said, “Jin’s trail name should be Not Lost, what do y’all think?” “Lost and Found?” “Nah, Not Lost.” And Jin loved it!

I spent so much time at Boots Off I got to know Cap’n Ron, a sailor with long experience building and repairing wooden boats and tall ships. There are fascinating stories from the people who live and work the AT hostels. Since I’m going against traffic, south not north, and I actually love socializing with the hiker community, I feel happy opening these conversations and connections, another gift the AT gives me.

It stopped raining so I hiked 18.1 miles, camped and then cruised 15 miles into the next hostel the following day. Mountain Harbour, that also has a permanent food truck/bar area open at 5 pm every night. Ate my first really big dinner after 2 days of excellent trail tread.

The following day I slackpacked from the top of Carver’s Gap back down to the 19E road and the hostel. Easy and beautiful day. The Fitzgeralds, a local couple with beautiful harmonies and an acoustic guitar played for us at the hostel. I’m buying their album, due out in a couple of months, never thought I’d appreciate bluegrass/hillbilly but the live performance was stellar.

Hostel hopping and slackpacking aka Platinum Blazing, doesn’t make for proper daily mileage. There are only so many places where the trail crosses an accessible road and where it’s worth the while of a shuttle driver. Combine that with the fact they need travel time added to their day just to come fetch up a hiker, so it’s extremely rare to get a ride at say 7 am so that I can have some confidence I can hike 20 miles before dark. That means my slackpack days finish too early. But! I get to sleep indoors and I’m not having to carry the full load of all my camping gear. This opportunity isn’t something I’ve found on the PCT or CDT or other shorter trails I’ve hiked. So I’m going to keep embracing what the AT has on offer.