[Evening Note: As we type this, the mother of all thunderstorms is hammering Lost Mountain and we can’t tell you how happy we are to listen to the rain on the roof of this shelter rather than have it fill up the inside of our tent as this storm sounds like it is capable of doing. We just had lightning with the sound of a tree exploding, so close that the immediate clap of thunder almost beat the lightning it got here so quick! Now that was a little too close even for N who ranks in the world’s top ten of thunderstorm lovers. Pushing on to this shelter late in the day when we had several nice opportunities to pitch a tent is one of the best calls we’ve made the whole trip!]

We slept late, but awoke with no ill effects from yesterday’s 20+ miles. Linda Butts, our B&B hostess, fixed us “fresh from her own chickens” eggs and waffles with lots of fresh fruit. We are happy to report that X’s 24-hour “hiker bug” had run its course and her appetite had returned.

After doing an inventory of our food, we went through our backpacks and picked out about half dozen items to mail home. Because of their convenience, we find we have used our iPhones almost exclusively for our picture taking, pulling out the good camera only for a telephoto vista shot or a backlit subject needing a fill-in flash, so we decided to save the weight of the camera, charger, and extra battery, and send it home. We hope this isn’t something we will regret after the hike…

We shopped at Dollar General to round out the four days of food we’ll need before a re-supply in Marion after Mt. Rogers. Although not excited about it, we add a pound of peanut butter which we hope our renewed trail appetites will find appealing. We discard a bunch of food packaging and are ready to leave Damascus at 9:30 a.m.

But we don’t. We stop at Sundog Outfitters again, where X decides to pull the trigger on a new pair of shoes. We then move next door to Mojoe’s, looking for a “one for the road” bagel. We run into several folks we haven’t seen in a while and after exchanging updates (and getting ourselves a 10 o’clock treat), it’s 11:00 a.m., and the morning is shot! Finally, we head out of town, with a half mile section of flat hard packed gravel the AT shares with the Virginia Creeper Trail. When the AT crosses the highway (US 58) and climbs a steep set of stairs, covered in poison ivy, we know we are officially “out of town.”

The key question of the day is the condition of N’s back. Our plan is to stop every hour to take off his pack and do several minutes of stretching. The rest we will leave in the hands of the RoseSniffers, a home schooling family who live very close to Pen Mar, on the Mason-Dixon Line, who have adopted us via our electronic journal, and have promised to include N in their prayers. They appear to be well connected, as N is able to get through the day pain free.

We climb about a thousand feet in two sections with a short level section in between, then come back down to cross US 58 again. For the next couple of miles, the AT and the Creeper Trail both parallel the same stream and through the trees we see lots of bicycle use. Then we begin switch-backing up 1,300′ towards the next shelter in an area of many mountain laurels (at or just past their flowering peak). We eventually come back down to share the Creeper Trail for about 7/10 of a mile, including the very impressive Luther Hassinger Memorial Bridge. We stop for conversation with two novice section hikers who have questions about what clothes thru hikers carry, and several students of Warren Doyle whose practice hike assignment includes interviewing folks they meet.

We can hear distant thunder as we make the final climb to the shelter, and are pleased when the three folks already here make plenty of room for us. We race the end of daylight to cook dinner and wash up. Given our late start out of Damascus, we are very satisfied with our day. And we are ever so hopeful the continued hourly stretch breaks will keep N’s back from acting up. We don’t think we’re out of the woods yet, but we’re guardedly optimistic.