Damascus, VA

Dear Friends,

So far I've not really been able to keep a blog going about this whole trail thing, but have decided that it's time I did as many of you seem to be interested in what it is I'm doing out here. I was keeping a whole lot of journal up until the Smoky Mountains but it's pretty time consuming and well, boring. If I"m writing I'd wrather write poems, or stories or songs. You know, dress it up a little. I have always been hesitant to start a blog because I don't feel that anyone's life is really any more interesting that anyone else's when you get down to it. So when you read what I'm up to please don't feel that what I'm doing on a given day is necessarily any more interesting that what you did. I want to know about your lives, too, because you are my friends.

Of course, I've had a lot of fun so far and have met a multitude of fun people and have seen some beautiful things and so forth. I'm doing what I want to do and that's that. I'll try to fill you in a little bit over the course of time about the previous 6 weeks but to do start this thing off in the past seems stupid to me, so I'll start it all off in Damascus, Virginia where I am right now. Here we go! Oh, I'll be including photos later as they get developed and put onto a CD.

I got into Damascus, Virginia this morning at about 10 o'clock after camping out in Tennesse just shy of the TN/VA border last night. Another lovely night out in the woods it was, too, as I found a great camp site just before it got dark at 8.30. I hit a little of the 100 proof and read a bit more of Conrad's Heart of Darkness before dozing off to the sound of the breeze slipping through the pines.

I hiked the remaining 7 miles into town and got to The Place...A hiker/biker hostel run by the Methodist Church on a donation basis. Very bare-bones, but when you're used to sleeping in the woods it's all the same. Actually it's not. I prefer the woods. Anyhow, I got to the breafast place known as Cowboys which is also part of the gas station and had a great breakfast of biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon and coffee and also had a Lemon Moon Pie, two Raspberry Zingers and Goo Goo Cluster. I was hanging out with a few other hikers Duckie (who nearly got stranded on top of Roan Mountain) and also CRS (Can't Remember Shit) and her boyfriend who's name I now can't remember! Ha! We had a good time and before I left Jon from Johnson City in E. Tennessee had his girlfriend meet him out here and they sat down for some calories.

I went back to the hostel to shower before I hit town and went out to buy a pair of pants to cut off into some shorts. It's cold and all right now, but I anticipate summer will arrive shortly and want to be prepared. Besides, in these town settings you really want to wear different clothes. I bought a shirt for $3 in Erwin, TN a week and a half ago, and I was lucky enough here to find some jeans I then cut off into shorts. Not as short as Steven Tanner, but with courage I will get there! Now I'm at the library doing all this.

So the most interesting stuff to happen really happened last week. I left Erwin, TN a week ago Sunday and was set to hit Damascus in about 5 days. I got out later than I wanted to (2 PM) but managed to get about 10 to 12 miles in. I was hoping to night hike, but every time I thought I'd get to do so it go cloudy on me. I got up the next morning and headed off, hoping to get over Roan Mountain, notoriously the coldest spot on the AT. I get through Greasy Creek Gap with sleet starting to fall, and then snow and the cold is setting in for sure. I get to the next shelter (there are lean-tos or shelters about 7 - 10 miles along the trail) and see my friend Saw Man (he was a machine gunner in the Marines) and even though it's only 3 in the afternoon we both decide to hole up and get over it the next day. Duckie, Bryan and Selena go for it. The snow just keeps on coming.

I wake up the next morning and there's snow everywhere and more coming down. I am able to eventually get my gear packed up and hit the trail only to discover myself in a snow drift up to my knees after about 50 yards and an infinite amount of effort. I hike back down to the shelter to tell Saw Man that I'm heading back to the Gap to try to find some hidden hostel in the mountains even though it's very very hard to go backwards. I see no other viable option. It would turn out to be a wise move, and as it happens Saw Man and I embark on an adventure in the snowfall to find this hostel.

After a wrong turn, a complete lack of directionality and a few whims and a lark, Saw Man and I finally find this hostel known as Greasy Creek Friendly which is packed with plently of other filthy hikers by now. It's run by Connie, or CC, and it's about as cute as it gets. Stuck back in the mountains and heated by a wood stove we all sit around and play cards, watch movies and lament the weather. A few others straggle in throughout the day, but most hikers are stuck in Erwin at Uncle Johnny's place anyway at this point. Either that or they were able to get over Roan Mountain the previous day and were able to keep on keeping on.

The next day is much much nicer and Mule leaves after breakfast for Roan Mountain and beyond. He's been there for 4 days and can't take any more idleness. I decide to wait it out with the rest of everyone and hope that his footprints are there in the snow the next day for all of us to follow and not have to blaze it ourselves. You see, the blazes on the AT are 2x6 inch vertical rectangles and white. Snow is also white, and it's pretty tough to find them if the snow hits the tree the right way. We all go in to Johnson City, which is the nearest town to Greasy Creek Friendly and 45 minutes away and restock on our vices and food and gorge ourselves on Golden Corral. If you're not familiar with it, Golden Corral is a buffet of magnificent proportion, and these proportions of food are directly proportional to their clientele. It is all massive and awesome. There's several of us, including Saw Man, Jon, Patrick, Detour, and General and we gorge ourselves on Mac and Cheese, okra, steak, chicken, pizza, beans, pie, cake, ice cream...anything you can imagine. And all for less than $8. We hit the resupply, cram back in CC's jeep and go back to the tranquility of the Greasy Creek Friendly.

That night proves to be more resting than the previous because her crazy neighbor does not run his lawnmower at 4 in the morning or beat on pots and pans. He's a crazy old logger who just hates hikers for some eason, and he's under the delusion that by waking up at 4 in the morning and making noise he ruins our lives, but he's terribly mistaken. The lawnmower's actually kind of soothing and the stereo plays decent music. Local color.

The next morning I high-tail it out of there and get up to Roan Mountian. It's sunny and awesome out and it looks like a winter wonderland. The snow is very deep, but Mule (or maybe Ketchup's) footprints have led the way up the side of this monster and I find myself up at the top eventually. There used to be a motel up on top of it way way back in the day and it straddle the TN-NC state line. Drinking was legal in TN but not in NC, so the sherrif of NC would hang out on the NC side ready to arrest those who wandered over from TN with a drink. What a pain. That's people for you.

It's sunny, but stopping starts the body cooling down so I start off down the mountain to Carver Gap. Low and behold there's Trail Magic waiting for us. Ketchup (I'll telll you about Ketchup later on) has been manning the Trail Magic fort for several hours for El Jefe who's here with his wife from Chicago. Trail Magic is a term used to describe the benevolent act of those sit at roadsides waiting for through-hikers (as opposed to section hikers) to pass through so they can give them free food and stuff. It's as awesome as it sounds. El Jefe had chili, burgers, hotdogs, cornbread, cookies and even beer. After about a half hour there were many of us there having a ball.

I take off for the next destination of the day which is Overmountain Shelter, named after the Overmountain Men of the Revolutionary War. It's an old barn where a lot of of weekenders go because there's a road not too far from it I guess. The night was beautiful and we had a whole slew of us there just hanging out as the sun went down and the campfire rose. It was supposed to be a full moon that night, and low and behold it started to rise out of the next day's challenge - Hump Mountain. The forecast called for more rain, but you just don't know what's going to happen. The full moon rose over the mountain and out of the few whispy clouds and I do have to say it was one of the more incredible things I'd ever seen.

The next morning was clear and I hustled to get my stuff together. Clouds were starting to come over hump mountain and I figured it'd be a race to get over it before the rain began to fall.

You sort of feel ridiculous on the top of these old bald mountains as the rain and thunder beckon in the distance because you are the tallest thing up there and, unless your young, you inevitable have to aluminum poles in your hands to act as lightning rods. I hustled and flew over the thing and it began sleeting up there and then it began to rain. I got my rain jacket on just in time and managed to get back into the forest as the rain really began coming down.

The weather cleared out that afternoon, and it was a great hiking day. I got into the next shelter area around 6 o'clock or so and chose to stay. I do prefer tenting, but sometimes prudence dictates that you stick it out in a shelter. Besides, this shelter, also, was pretty awesome. A bizarre structure with two full levels and even an elevated third one way up in the rafters. I hang my poor socks up to dry and start dinner for the day which is mashed potatoes with tuna and hot chiles and garlic. People start rolling in, but so do more clouds and after a little bit we end up with a proper thunder storm. Saw Man comes in all drenched and joins me, Unplugge, Sam the Jam, Ketchup, Carolina and Spokes. A whole bunch of weekenders show up in full-on camo gear and take up the second tier with Saw Man and hang their stuff up to dry. Zen Master and General show up pretty late as they'd gotten lost on the same stretch that I and others did, too.

Then next morning was an early rise out of the shelter and on to Kincora, a famous donation-hostel run by AT legend Bob Peoples. It is also by now Saturday before Easter and a few of the hikers would like to get in for church. I get in at around 2 in the afternoon, and manage to catch a ride to town with everyone to do some resupply. I offer to cook dinner for the masses that day and everyone's cool with that so we ended up eating pasta with meat sauce, salad, garlic bread, brownies and ice cream. It was awesome. We also had eggs, biscuits and bacon the next morning too, and it only cost us each about $5. We stay up pretty late playing Hearts and chit-chatting. It's pretty cool again, but the sun does come out eventually.

I take off about 10.30 on Easter after calling the parents and manage to get about 20 miles out. It was a fantastic hike that day and I passed a massive waterfall, got to scramble over the rocks around a river and found a whole bunch of flowers that I was unfamiliar with, the most impressive of which were the Wild Bleeding Hearts. The flower book has come in very handy! I'm hoping to get close to Iron Mountain shelter, but due to more cloud cover coming in after dusk my night hiking experience is not to happen. At least not yet. I pitch my tent and camp solo. It's not too cold out there, but the wind picks up as I am on the ridge. It rains that night and the wind is howling in the morning, so I don't get moving until 10.30 again! I do manage to have another 20-plus mile day and even catch up to those who left well before me on Easter. I stopped at the Nick Grindstaff Memorial earlier on. Nick was a Hermit who had gone west to find his fortune in the 1800s but got robbed. He then went back to Iron Mountain to live the rest of his life, and the memorial is on a chimney which is, perhaps, the chimney he himself had built. It read: He Lived Alone, He Suffered Alone, He Died Alone. And yet there's this memorial to him! I bet you he'd be a little annoyed about it if he knew now. Maybe not, though.

I camp out that night not too far from the Virginia state line at a great camp site. I'm down off the top of the mountains and the wind is much calmer and the temperature much warmer (you know, about 4 or 5 degrees warmer...). I leave the next morning for Damascus, and, as you are aware, that's where I'm at now.

I'm staying here again tonight, and last night we all hung out at Dot's Inn where the jukebox is pretty good and the beer's pretty cheap. I'm leaving tomorrow for Mt. Rogers, and the it's supposed to be sunny skies and much warmer soon! The next stop will probably be Pearisburg, VA.

Later On,

Jonathan