[* If you’re willing to count the 17 nights we’ve slept in a bed with a roof over our heads] (Plus instead of being tempted by a pizza delivery opportunity at the Partnership shelter, we receive manna from heaven compliments of the Valley View Baptist Church youth group trail angels)

Today called for an early start if we were to have any chance of making it to the Partnership Shelter (famed not only for its attached showers, but as the only shelter on the trail with pizza delivery available!), and we were zooming downhill from Hurricane Mountain at 7:15. We had 9.1 miles to the next shelter, then another 10.6 to Partnership.

After stopping for lunch and to filter water at the Trimpi Shelter (and trust us, this water source really needed some filtering, as it was barely moving and covered in mosquitoes!), we passed through an active (as in “watch your step”) cow pasture. The afternoon sun was just starting to heat things up when we came on a little clearing with a cooler full of cold sodas and a plastic bin with all kinds of both store bought and homemade snacks. This was beyond trail magic. On this Sunday afternoon, this was manna from heaven. Thanks so much to the trail angel youth group from Valley View Baptist Church. The kids had even provided a third bin for trash!

The section of the AT we have been hiking for the last three days has been devoid of young machos. The super “young machos” we saw back between NOC and the Smokies have now built up a five day lead between us and them, according to the shelter log entries. And the regular young machos who started after us have been piling up in Damascus to take in all the Trail Days activities. We expected this, but it has been even more extreme than we imagined. Today, a weekend day at that, we were on the trail for about nine hours, covering almost twenty miles. In that entire time, we saw only one other soul, a southbound section hiker on Day 2 of a hike to Damascus.

With the end of Trail Days, we expect a break in this Damascus logjam as young thru hikers once again start streaming north. Although all Chick-fil-A stores are closed today, we can even now hear the Canadian Chick-fil-A team shaking off hang-over’s in Damascus and start roaring north. Although we had built a 44-mile lead on them by skipping Trail Days, we know it’s only a matter of time before they begin to pass us again. In fact, there’s already a Trovert office pool going on to predict when that will be!

Our plan was to stay at Partnership for the night, then catch an early morning shuttle at the adjoining Mt. Rogers HQ/VC into town to re-supply. However, on arriving at the shelter we read a posted sign indicating the first shuttle on Monday would not run until 2:30 in the afternoon. That sure didn’t fit our schedule, so X approached two local women who’d come out for a short walk in the woods to give us a ride to Marion after their hike.

By the time they had returned, we had learned from a second sign by the Visitor Center’s outside phone there are actually three daily shuttles to/from town. But X also learned the shelter’s showers were barely tepid, not the temperature she was hoping for to wash away four days of grime. So we head to town and the Virginia House Inn, where the clerk arranges to take us to the laundry in the morning, and where the Ingles grocery is just a stone’s throw away. A hot shower and a trip to the nearby Mexican restaurant and we are ready for bed. For tonight, we are once again roughing it deluxe, with hopes of being back on the AT by noon tomorrow to start the walk towards Bland.