Julie and I are hiking the Appalachian Trail in the US from Springer Mt, Georgia, to Mt Katahdin, Maine, in the north, a distance of almost 2,200 miles (3,540 km). Our journey will start in early May 2023 and is expected to take about five months. We will be mostly camping, carrying 3-5 days of supplies to get us between resupply points, where we will be staying in hostels/hotels/motels where we can. I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail back in 1986 so it will be interesting to see how much has changed and how much it has stayed the same.

Appalachian Trail - Day 033 - Damascus Day Off

Day: 033

Date: Saturday, 27 May 2023

Start:  Damascus (AT Mile 471.0)

Finish:  Damascus (AT Mile 471.0)

Daily Kilometres:  0

GPX Track:  Click here and here for Julie’s Strava & Photos from her walk and run today.

Total Kilometres:  799.5

Weather:  Cool and overcast.

Accommodation:  Hostel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Cooked breakfast.

  Lunch:  Mexican sub.

  Dinner:  Chicken carbonara/Chicken & beans, peach pie & rice pudding.

Aches:  Dave - while seeking to cut off the top of a heel callus, under which a small blister had formed, he sliced a little too deeply with his pocket knife and caused a bleed that took some time to stop; Julie - nothing to report.

Highlight:  Mailing to our US friends, Jeff and Pascale, a weighty package of gear we think we can do without.

Lowlight:  None really.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

A relaxing day which started with a nice cooked breakfast provided by our hostel host, followed by a walk down to the Post Office to mail off unneeded gear (see above) on a cool grey overcast day.

We then returned to the outdoor store we had visited yesterday to purchase some new pack covers in light of the very wet day forecast for tomorrow and the less-than-stellar performance of the pack covers that came with our packs (though we are happy with the Gregory packs themselves).

From there we walked to the big supermarket outside the other end of town to buy supplies for the next 3-4 days and returned to the hostel via the Virginia Creeper rail trail that runs through the centre of town. Despite the grey and cool weather, the five or so bike rental and shuttle businesses that service the trail were doing a roaring trade on this holiday weekend.

Not only does the rail trail come through Damascus, but so does the Bicentennial TransAmerica cycle route and we have seen some heavily-laden bike tourers. The town markets itself as the crossroad of trails and there are hiking and cycling motifs everywhere you go.

It's a complete transformation since Dave hiked through here 37 years ago when the town seemed dead or dying.

After lunch Dave took it easy and did some admin then watched a movie on the hostel's Netflix account while Julie went for a run on one of the local trails.

Later, we microwaved dinner at the hostel and had a quiet and early night.
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