May 7

Life on a commune

Nice hiking this morning, parallel to the Creeper trail for a while.  Saw another black snake, right on a long foot bridge we were crossing on.  This morning we were walking in a really nice area, full of streams.  We took a break at Lost Mountain shelter, and there was another page from the Victoria's Secret magazine taped to the wall.  Okay, so now it's game on.  I'm now on the lookout for more supermodels along the trail.  It seems they like to gather at shelters, so they should be easy to find.  I wonder how many I will find.  It was too early for lunch at this point, so we decided to hike up to Buzzard Rock.  The climb up was really tough.  Just before the top, the weather started to turn.  Still had some nice views though.  As soon as we set our packs down, and reached for our food bags, a cold, wet rain started falling on us.  So much for lunch!  We kept hiking to get out of the exposed clearing, and eventually made it up to the top of Whitetop Mountain.  After a 12 mile day, we came to a parking lot, and all huddled up under the overhang of the bathroom roof to get out of the rain.  The situation was bleak.  We were 4467 feet up, at Elk Gardens, miserable, wet, hungry, and cold.  Cell phones had no service.  It would be 5 miles, and up another 1000 feet of elevation, to the next shelter.  In this weather, we knew it would be full already.  After about 45 minutes of waiting around, and no success hitching a ride from the 2 cars that passed by, a passenger van from Sundog Outfitter in Damascus pulled up in the parking lot.  They had been dropping off people that were biking the Virginia Creeper Trail back into town.  We got an $8 shuttle back to Damascus to regroup.  Coming down off the mountain, the sun came out and the rain stopped.  Figures.  We got back into town, and every inn and hostel was full.  Crap!  Now what were we going to do?  We decided to start walking down Rt 58 toward Abingdon, Va, which is a larger town, thinking we could get a hotel room, and get back to the trail in the morning somehow.  About a mile down the highway a red pickup truck pulled over and gave us a ride.  We had a young hiker from Germany with us at this point, named Deep, so all five of us, packs and all, were whisked away down the highway.  The guys that picked us up are former thru hikers, and they have a farm just outside of town that they let us stay at.  They even cooked us a great dinner of beef tacos, with iced tea, and chocolate cake for desert.  Our accommodations for the night were away from the main house, in a 2 story cabin that they had built from the ground up.  It utilized solar panels, so it was completely off the grid.  We all stayed up watching the stars, and listening to the guitar, from the second floor balcony.  The farm had dozens of goats, hundreds of birds (ducks, geese, and chickens), a horse, and several dogs.  They had a lot of land, and a grand plan for turning this place into a sort of commune for hikers.  People could come and go, help out around the farm, etc etc.  Most of their projects were largely unfinished, but it was a cool concept if they get some more help and are able to see their ideas completed.  We all felt like we punked out by coming back into town to get out of the rain.  But things turned out way better than we could have imagined.  Only good things happen when you hitch a ride with strangers, haha!

M R goats.
 M R not goats.
 O S A R goats.