damascus va to unnamed campsite

it took us a while to get out of damascus. the town vortex is strong. we woke up late, took a very long time to clean and pack up, and ended up with two grocery bags we wanted to donate to our extended tramily that had just got into town.

we met them at a street corner, and they talked us into hitting the coffee shop for a cinnamon bun. we chatted outside while we ate, and ultimately weren’t on trail until almost 11:30, the issue being we had planned 22 miles.

rocket had left hours earlier as he had to hit the post office and had missed the extended tramily shenanigans. kick had gone back to the hospital to talk to the surgeon. i found out tonight that he’s back on trail, only a handful of miles back. apparently since the x-ray didn’t show anything they won’t operate, which is dumb, because you can clearly see something is there just looking at it

once back in the woods however, things looked up. the weather was beautiful and i was able to chat with magz for a bit. i also got a chance to do an in the woods test of my new shokz bone conducting headphones, and i have to say so far i love them. they don’t sound nearly as good as my jabra bluetooth earbuds, but i love being able to hear my environment. there also isn’t the BOOM BOOM BOOM of my footsteps in my plugged ears.

i also lost the eyepiece to my camera today, something i knew was coming because it was designed poorly. i’m actually surprised it took this long.

the trail was hot and dry, but the grade wasn’t too bad, so i made good time. i mostly hiked alone, but did a couple stretches with maestro. ultimately we had to quit about 4 miles short of our intended destination because we ran out of time. rocket made it, and as i said kick is a few miles back, but on trail, so it was me, bugs, maestro, and lyric tonight.

we set up, ate dinner, and were in tents pretty quickly, as daylight didn’t last long once we made camp.

the wind has picked up a bit, and though it’s not bad, the memory of being blown to bits at neel’s gap is forefront in my memory.

some additional photos from today: