We are in Damascus! We decided to yellow-blaze 22 miles to get out of a bad wind & rain storm and honestly, we couldn't be happier! Not only have we been reunited with Icicle and Quailman, we have also been able to hang out in what I would consider the coolest trail town so far! Our original plan allowed for no dilly-dallying in Damascus, which would have been pretty terrible...
I'm changing our format again to make it easier on me, especially since we hardly ever have cell service and I never want to write in camp at night. I'd rather be sleeping!
Day 26: Zero at Double Spring Shelter
Day 27: Double Spring Shelter to Icewater Spring Shelter
Day 28: Icewater to Tricorner Knob Shelter
Day 29: Tricorner Knob to Cosby Knob Shelter
Day 30: Cosby Knob to Standing Bear Hostel
Day 31: Standing Bear to Brown Gap
Day 32: Brown Gap to Old Rd.
Day 33: Old Rd. to Laughing Heart Lodge in Hot Springs, NC
Day 34: Zero at Laughing Heart
Day 35: Hot Springs to Campsite near Lover's Leap
Day 36: Campsite to Spring Mountain Shelter
Day 37: Spring Mountain to Hemlock Hollow Hostel in Greeneville, TN
Day 38: Zero at Hemlock Hollow
Day 39: Hemlock Hollow to Jerry Cabin Shelter
Day 40: Jerry Cabin to Hogback Ridge Shelter
The Smoky's
So, as you might have guessed, we survived our super cold night in the Smoky's. The temperature in our little bungalow never dipped below 25 degrees, which is just insane when you consider that it was less than 10 degrees outside the shelter. We spent our zero day playing in the snow (give us a break, we're Floridians!) and yogi-ing food off of the section hikers that passed through. Yogi-ing is the term for acting like a "Yogi Bear" trying to get food from someones pic-a-nic basket! It's easy to do: first, find a day hiker or a section hiker. Next, continually mention how hungry you are and that you are low on food. Section hikers almost always pack too much food, so if they catch on that you are discretely asking for food, they will off-load some of the extra weight right into your belly. It also helps to be a semi-attractive girl asking a bunch of college-age guys. In the Smoky's this was really amazing because we actually were low on food and had to ration for 2 extra days.
Chase actually got his official trail-name on our zero day in the Smoky's, because Pacman was gracious enough to point out that Angeleyes was "so gay." So Chase was redubbed "The Ramen Shaman" for his ability to suggest that mostly anything left at the bottom of your foodbag would probably be really good in Ramen. And he is so right on that.
The rest of our time in the Smoky's was pretty great. Hiking in the deep snow was an experience for sure. Icicle came down with a head cold at Icewater Spring Shelter and her last few days were really miserable. She wrote a really great blog post about it, which you can check out here. We all carry cold medicine now! Our second to last day to Cosby Knob was really great weatherwise, as it was blowing 40mph across the ridgeline with heavy rain! Superfun to hike in! NOT.
We were all very excited to leave the Smoky Mountains. "At least it's not the Smoky's" became a favorite phrase.
Hostels
We've stayed in a lot of diverse places so far on our journey. There is a lot of lore behind many of the hostels along the AT, and a lot of rumors about each one. I'm going to take a moment to talk about the three hostels we stayed in on this stretch of trail.
Standing Bear Hostel divides the AT community pretty decisively into two camps: people who love it, and people who hate it. I'm pretty sure this chasm is created over the people who own Standing Bear and the resupply options, because the accomodations are normal for the AT (basic bunkhouse, OK cabin). The community kitchen area was really awesome, and the shower was great (hot water FOREVER). The people who run it, Curtis and Rocket, are pretty typical "Dueling Banjos" mountain folk. We interacted with Rocket mainly, and he seemed like a pretty genuine and decent human being (though blazed out of his mind), but our brief conversations with Curtis left us feeling pretty uneasy. Drug use is pretty open and rampant there, so if you're uncomfortable with that sort of thing, definitely stay away. My main problem with the place was the resupply. Everything that a hiker would actually want to buy was marked waaaaay up. All of the meat was out of date. The coolers smelled like pee. I get the impression that they buy groceries at a discount grocery store and then just mark everything up 50%. While you can get buy here, I would suggest sending a resupply box (though I also wouldn't be surprised if they did away with accepting mail drops, as Curtis mentioned that it takes away from his business). Overall, I would stay there again, though we wouldn't resupply and we wouldn't stay for more than a night.
The Hostel at Laughing Heart Lodge was one of our favorite places that we have stayed so far. The location is a little outside of the main drag and the room we stayed in was a little small for the price (the smallest double room in the place, I think), but the common area and the people were awesome. Chuck Norris was a really great guy to talk to and he even let us leave Sheila in the room when we went to lunch and to do resupply. He let us do work-for-stay for one of the nights that we stayed, so we swept and cleaned rooms as hikers left. We were able to save a bit of money by buying some frozen pizzas and frozen fried chicken from the Dollar General and cook in the common kitchen. We hung out with the other hikers staying the night in the living room and watched "Pitch Perfect" while eating pints of Ben & Jerry's. The showers were awesome and had seemingly endless hot water. The lawn was also really great for spreading gear out on. We would most definitely stay again!
Hemlock Hollow is just outside of Hot Springs, and I don't imagine they get too much business unless it's during peak hiker-season. We really enjoyed our time there! Mark and his mom are great people who love the trail! The bunkhouse, cabins, and bathrooms were all built using lumber logged from the property, which was really neat. The location was beautiful! A small creek runs straight thorugh the middle of the property and the cafe has this wonderful porch that overlooks the creek. They let us do work-for-stay for one of the nights, so we stacked firewood with Mark, which was awesome. The bunkroom is heated via wood-burning stove, and it was really easy to overheat the place. We woke up sweating the first night and kept the windows open for an hour to let the heat out. Sheila loved hanging out with Rowdy, Mark's Aussie-mix dog. They played for hours! The only reason we stayed here was because of Sheila: she ate some trash back at Spring Mountain Shelter (the place was a dump) and didn't want to eat or drink that morning or that afternoon. Some winter weather was blowing in that night, so we didn't want to be stuck on the trail if something was seriously wrong. She was feeling fine again by the next day, and we all watched the crazy sleet/snow/rain/wind from the comfort of the cafe. The showers weren't very good, but it has something to do with the way they get the water, so you only have 5 minutes to shower and the next person has to wait 20 minutes. Sailor showers are a must there. The bathroom is nicely heated though, so this wasn't a problem in the winter. The resupply there is pretty limited, but they weren't fully stocked up for hiker-season yet, so that may have been why. We would stay again, but the distance from Hot Springs makes it not ideal.
The Hiker Bubble
We were unfortunate enough to get a taste for what hiking in the Bubble must be like when we stayed at Jerry Cabin Shelter. We hiked in around 5 o'clock and decided to stay as a section hiker named Codger had a fire going in the fireplace. We set our packs down and start collecting firewood to dry out our socks after hiking in snow and slush all day. About 30 minutes later, a couple come into the shelter and proceed to roll out their sleeping pads right next to the fire. They didn't even say hello to any of us before deciding to set up. Codger had his pack sitting on the floor of the sleeping area next to the fire and he had to awkwardly move it out of their way as they set up. Ramen Shaman and I thought it was weird and really rude, because we hadn't experienced anything like that before. Anyway, we all are introduced and everything seems fine until about 10 minutes later. I'm in the process of blowing up our sleeping pads because we decided we wanted to stay in the shelter with Sheila for the first time, and 8 people show up at the same time. All of them are thru-hikers. All of them started March 1st. I was very instantly overwhelmed with this group. I quickly decided that we should tent, so we moved out of the shelter, and they instantly took over. Everyone was great and nice and happy, but it just seemed so strange to me that such a large group had set out from Springer together and had been hiking together for nearly a month. We then put two and two together and decided that the couple that had come in a little early were claiming their space because they knew that there was a bubble of hikers coming. I remember hearing that there were something like 100 people at Hawk Mountain Shelter one night, and I cannot even imagine how crazy that must have been. My experience with the trail has very much been of an intimate community of hikers that are usually hiking alone and will probably camp or shelter with very few other hikers on any given day. We all know each other and can recognize one another coming down the trail. March and April starters will have no idea what that is like until much later in the game after most people have quit. I prefer the small group dynamic of early-starters, and I'll be happy when the fast March bubble pass us by.
40th day on the Trail!
Our 40th day was spent hiking miserably in slush. Thankfully we didn't even realize it was our 40th Trailaversary!
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