4/29/01
Boy scouts, bears and marathons. That pretty well sums up today. Want the details? OK, here goes. This morning the scout troop slept in until 7 a.m. Then we slowly packed up and ate a leisure breakfast. After all the scouts were ready to get on the trail, I "speechified" them (as described in a trail register by Fiddler) with some stories about my thru-hike as well as a review of some of the major differences between an individual thru-hike in contrast with a weekend group outing. After my speech, we began the 4.5 mile trek to the road crossing where the troop would depart for home. I joined the troop at the road where the bus was parked and ate a great lunch with them (real hoagie sandwiches, sodas, strawberry shortcake, and miscellaneous snacks I yogied from the scouts - hiker hunger is my excuse). At 12:45 p.m. I said so long to the troop, which was very difficult since I won't see them again for 5 months and scouting is such an important part of my life.
I was a little sluggish restarting my legs after such a large lunch, but got back into the groove fairly quickly. I covered the 11.8 miles to the Abingdon shelter (the last shelter in Tennessee) in 4 and 1/2 hours. I had passed Jeopardy and Java along the way who told me that some thru-hikers were considering hiking 3 miles beyond the shelter to shorten the trip to Damascus tomorrow. That sounded like a good idea to me and when I arrived at the shelter there were several thru-hikers eating dinner so they could advance down the trail before dark. I pumped water and prepared my dinner, then ate fairly quickly so I could be in position to hike further if the herd began moving. About the time I was finishing dinner, Storyteller (who I just met when I passed him this afternoon) came into camp and announced that he had just seen a bear up the hill. I didn't know whether to believe him or not (with the trail name "Storyteller" I was suspicious). Sure enough, 10 minutes went by and the bear appeared from the trail, heading toward the encampment. The bear was fairly young, but nevertheless "big enough" to get all of us excited, and cameras appeared from nowhere as we all wanted to capture the moment. This bear seemed to have no fear of humans despite being outnumbered 13 to 1, but he stopped short of the shelter area and sniffed the air to capture the aromas of the various and sundry dinners in progress. I knew from his body language that he was going to make a return visit during the night. A group of us had already decided to hike 3 miles further (but I wanted to stay just to see the bear come into camp) and I decided to go with them.
At 7:30 Cusi, Samurai, Shambala, Tea Tree, Two Treks, and yours truly began the 3 mile hike to position us closer to Damascus. As if we hadn't had enough adventure for one day, when we covered the three miles the consensus amongst the group was to go all the way to Damascus. Night hike!. I was nervous about hiking at night and had visions of broken bones and a trail-ending fall, but nevertheless stayed with the group. We literally hiked 7 miles in the dark without the aid of light until the last mile which became steep and rocky. I turned on the headlamp for the final mile. It was amazingly easy to see the trail and feel the rocks and roots with a half moon and peripheral light from Abingdon and Damascus, Virginia. At 11:00 p.m. we reached "The Place", a Methodist Church hostel in Damascus. Yippee! We said goodbye to Tennessee with a night photo at the state line, then proceeded into Virginia. Only 500 more miles to go to complete Virginia. This was a very exciting day full of adventure and milestones. First bear, new state, no thunderstorms to speak of in 3 states, and my first marathon. Life is good. I even got a shower and pizza and cheesecake courtesy of trail angels when I arrived at "The Place"! ! ! What a day. Happy trails to all from the Rabbit. Today's stats; low 45 degrees, high 80. Sunny. Today's mileage: 26.3. Cumulative mileage 455.1.
