Adjusting the Plans

I'm finding I don't really care to be hiking in the NOBO bubble. There are sometimes over 100 people starting a northbound hike per day this time of year. This makes the trail crowded at the shelters and campsites and towns are filled to capacity. I don't find it unbearable, but it certainly detracts from the reasons I'm out here. If I wanted to be in a crowd I could do that back home. I'm here to enjoy the wilderness and everything it brings. I enjoy meeting like-minded people but masses of them is more than I'm interested in doing.

Having said that, there is something coming up that I really want to avoid - Trail Days in Damascus, VA. This is a celebration of the trail and hikers that takes place every year, May 16 - 18 this year. Damascus is a little town of about 650. The festival will bring about 25,000 people there. No, that is not a typo. This started small but has grown into something akin to Burning Man for the AT. There is just too much excess and way too many people for me. I want to avoid it as much as possible. The trouble is that the event is only three days, but the influx and outflux of people will be much longer than that. 

The rate I'm going is not enough to miss all of this. But, Sherry and I brainstormed and we came up with a solution - skip that section and come back at a later date to fill in the gap. So tomorrow, Friday 4/18, we will drive about two hours north of here and I will get back on the trail at mile 710. I left the trail the other day at mile 290, making this a jump of 420 miles. Damascus is at mile 470, putting me 240 miles north of the festival. 

This also addresses some other concerns I've had, mainly my ending date. Right now, it's looking like I'll finish in November. The problem with that is they close the trail up Katahdin to the northern terminus in Maine on October 15th. This new plan would get us there before that and then we could drive down to North Carolina to visit Sherry's brother again while I fill in the gap. Afterwards we'll
go west to see family in Kansas City before heading home. If I can pick up my pace and we finish earlier, that would be even better. 

A plan like this is pretty common and is known as a flip-flop so I'm not some kind of trail blazer. Oops, trail humor. 

The Broad French River outside Hot Springs, NC
 

Hot Springs, NC. A very hiker friendly town.
 
 


 

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