Meet Virginia

Forgive me for the cliche song lyric post title, I truly couldn’t help myself.

My last blog post was around time spent in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Since then, quite a bit has happened, including the most recent milestone of entering the state of Virginia. Anecdotally, a thru hiker’s chances of success roughly double if they make it to Damascus, Virginia, and it is from Damascus that I am writing this blog post. Naturally, I’m very excited to be here, and at least anecdotally, am feeling great about the thru hike attempt.

The Appalachian Trail follows the border of North Carolina and Tennessee for quite some time beginning in the Smokies, and I’ve been told you cross the border some 80 plus times before finally making it to Virginia (I suspect this figure to be a “hiker exaggeration”, so please don’t quote me on this). It is interesting the impact this has on the aspiring thru hiker from a psychological perspective. States are one of the easiest chunks in which to break down the hike and measure progress against, and it can be quite disorienting to be unable to say with certainty what state you’re in at a given time (and this goes on for a matter of weeks, not days). Fortunately, there is a compass from which you can draw bearings, so long as you’re at a shelter: shelters in North Carolina have privies, shelters in Tennessee do not. A privy is roughly equivalent to an outhouse. The phrase “waiting to poop until North Carolina” morphed from a joke to a serious statement quickly for those that prefer to do their business in privies (I myself have yet to use one, preferring to dig a hole in a spot with a nice view). I’ve never heard a reasonable explanation for why this divide between Tennessee and North Carolina’s approaches to waste management exists, but Governor Lee, if you are reading this, know that it’s time to put aside differences of opinion – the people want their privies.

I’ve continued to enjoy the social aspect of the trail, meeting tons of fascinating, new, complex individuals. After departing from the Smokies, AquaDog’s family whisked him away for a weekend off trail, and I lost my primary hiking partner for a bit. This was a catalyst for my introduction to Snapshot, Spots, Rocket Man, Gandalf, Kitchen Sink, Curator, and Caramel. Their crew is ahead of me these days, but together we enjoyed zero days spent by the French Broad River, nights laughing about the absurd concoctions we’d decided to call “dinner” on our last night before resupplying, and learning just the perfect way to microwave frozen pulled pork sandwiches at the Nature’s Inn Hostel during a particularly gnarly storm. I ultimately linked back up with AD and some of his friends from college to hike the last ~50 miles into Virginia. Now they’ve gotten ahead of me, but I suspect we’ll soon see each other again.

I had my own series of distractions from pushing mileage on the trail since my last blog post. My beautiful, wonderful wife Glori planned a weekend for us in Marshall, North Carolina. It was the first time I’d worn a different outfit than some variation of my hiking layering system in over a month. Three high school friends took time out of their lives to come share in this adventure with me, and together we got to experience some of the coolest hiking I’ve done yet through the Roan Highlands. It was so neat for my real world and my thru hiking world to collide. I’ll admit, however, it’s also a bit stressful. The best way I can think to explain it is it’s like you’re throwing a house party. The trail is my temporary home (don’t read too much into verbiage here, “home” as in dwelling place), and so similarly to when you have guests into your home, you feel pressure to make sure they enjoy their time. The difference, however, is I don’t control the air conditioning in my home. Repairing the leaky roof isn’t an option. I can’t offer my guests treats after dinner, because I barely have room to keep enough food to get me to the next resupply. However, my house does have a few things most houses don’t. My house challenges you, physically and mentally. My house imprints pungent memories when you overcome those challenges. If you come over, I hope you’ll find you’ve left my house full. Not full as in the opposite of hungry, but full in a way that is challenging to come by in the “real world”.

I’ll soon have a post devoted to gear updates, as I’ve begun to make quite a few changes to my set up. As a preview, I’ll be picking up a new backpack and quilt in Pearisburg, Virginia!

There’s a phenomenon known as the “Virginia Blues”. I’ll be in this state longer than I’ve been hiking so far, and it is commonplace for people to find the state of Virginia to be quite challenging. The terrain is easier, the elevation changes less severe, and the peaks less dramatic. Why, then, is it challenging? I think it’s precisely these reasons. The states before and after Virginia present new challenges daily, but an aspiring thru hiker is in Virginia long enough to get their first dose of monotony since departing their usual lives. I, for one, am welcoming this new “boring” hiking with open arms, but it will be interesting to see how my opinion forms and changes over the next few weeks.

Notable quotes:

• “Thru hiking is 90% mental, and the rest is mental” – the Stone Sisters
• “Never carry water to a water source” – Sky
• “Never carry soap to a soap source” – Sky, shortly thereafter
• “Compromise and listening are the two most important things in any relationship” – Frog
• “Surround yourself with people that want to solve hard problems” – Styx