Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 93 – Creeping to Damascus


  • 27th October 2023

  • Thomas Knob Shelter (1699.3) - Campsite (1721.9)

  • Daily miles: 22.6

  • Total miles: 1723.6


It was a chilly night. The wind blew all night long but it was still about 10°C / 50°F which isn’t that cold, but the wind made it feel colder. It did feel like it warmed up a little overnight but the wind didn’t let up much. My tent was gently flapping all night long which sometimes sounded like rain but thankfully it wasn’t rain. 

Sunrise

Sunrise

The morning was beautiful and after a trip to the privy I left camp around 07:45am.

privy on the appalachian trail

Another day another privy

privy on the appalachian trail

Inside the privy

I had a lot of fluid to deal with this morning, my eyes were so swollen and every time I squeezed them shut they oozed with fluid. It was hard to see for the first part of the day. The Benadryl did not work!

sunrise

Soaking it all in

selfie of puff puff

Constant eye ooze

It was beautiful though with the sunrise and open meadows. There were a few forest sections but the trees were really short so it felt much more open than usual. I almost went the wrong way and started walking out into the open meadow before realising the trail took a hard right into the trees. 

I came down to the road where there was a privy and a trash can and I dumped out all my trash. Professor caught up to me, then Cal, Toe, Jet and Howard arrived and we started hiking uphill so I went at the back. But they all stopped for water so I ended up hiking behind Professor for a while and we had a nice chat. The trail is kind of intense today because there are so many thick leaves on the trail and it’s covering up all the trip hazards so we are tripping a lot. It’s also really hard to have a conversation because the crunching of the leaves is so loud. They were beautiful colours today though. 

trail through tall grass on the appalachian trail

Through the tall grasses

views into a valley

Can’t get enough of these views

the appalachian trail

This was actually the wrong way, but it was worth it

naked trees in the forest

The right was was into the trees

puff puff hiking on the appalachian trail through a green field

Such a beautiful morning

an outhouse and a trash can

Pit stop featuring 2 of the hiker holy trinity

We came to a road crossing and this guy starts yelling at us. “Hey are you thru hikers? Do you need anything?”

Um, no we are ok thanks. 

“I have soda”. 

Oh, well this changes things – I will definitely have a soda! 

So Professor and I go over there and I get a Ginger Ale and he has beer too so gradually all the others arrive and we end up being there for over 2 hours. The guy is cool and he normally does trail magic for the NOBOs but doing it for SOBOs is hard because there aren’t so many of them, but he got lucky today with 11 of us. His trail name is Gun Runner and he has a great story behind it. He offers us snacks and to charge our phones and he said don’t anybody leave here with any trash. 

hikers sitting around a van

Toe enjoying sitting with all her friends

a dirty cook pot

Toe also never cleans her pot!

hikers around a van

Trail magic from Gun Runner

Safety and Sidequest arrived just as we were all packing up to leave, they go slow in the mornings. 

So by 1pm we had managed 6.6 miles which wasn’t part of the plan today! We carried on and walked through more beautiful open meadows and then started on the quite long descent, crunching through the leaves and chatting in a hiker train, until we got to the junction with the Virginia Creeper Trail which runs parallel to the AT for a lot of the time, but it’s wide and not full of hidden rocks and tree roots because it’s a bike trail, so we planned to take that because we had paid our dues with how many time we had all tripped and stumbled today. 

2 hikers jumping on a gravel road

Pow

a hiker on the appalachian trail

May Queen

the trail on a hillside

The best kind of trail

hikers standing on big rocks

Hikers on big rocks

hiker standing on a big rock

It’s called fashun

hikers on the appalachian trail

Hiker train

hikers on the appalachian trail

Me and my old pal Professor

hiker on the appalachian trail

Just like the old days

We stop just before the junction a collect water from the creek and wait until we had everyone (apart from Safety and Sidequest who are behind). 

The Creeper Trail is so nice, and being a Friday after 4:30pm it was pretty quiet. We could all walk side by side and we could all walk with our heads up and not staring at the ground. The trail followed the creek the whole way and was very scenic. 

hiker on a big wooden bridge

On to the Virginia Creeper Trail

hikers on the virginia creeper trail

Runs parallel to the AT but doesn’t have rocks to trip over

hikers on the virginia creeper trail

Best decision ever

I hiked with Jet and had my first proper conversation with him which was nice. We came to a cafe which we had heard about and walked up to it but it looked closed. We were walking away when a lady came out and said she could serve us drinks and ice cream if we were interested and she unlocked the bathrooms for us too. That was so nice of them as they were clearly packing up and cleaning. So we all got ice creams and had a little sit at the picnic table. 

a cafe

Hellbenders cafe

hikers sitting around a picnic table eating ice cream

Loading up with sugar

It was now 6:10pm and we had 7 miles to Damascus and there was some debate over going all the way to town to go and get food and drinks and then coming back out to the trail to camp, but realistically that was never going to happen so we ended up stopping at the original campsite I had scoped out for today and we made it there just as it was getting dark so no need for night hiking. 

It was unusually warm too, especially as it turned very cold just after we left the cafe and I was hiking with my fleece on, but as we were setting up camp I got too hot which was very strange! 

Rabbit Foot was already there with his tent set up and we saw him and he said he was feeling really rough, a headache he can’t shake and feeling ill. 

We all sat around and ate dinner and it was so much more of a pleasant experience than last night. The water boiled quickly and the food actually stayed hot without the 30mph winds blowing through camp!


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Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 94 – The Halloween party bubble

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Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 92 – The Grayson highlands