TRAIL DAY 3
Tue, Feb 23, 2016 Another rainy, “dreary” day. Is there ever really a dreary day? Isn’t it a mysterious day, a day that closes you in on yourself a little, brings you home to the one inside, the one doing the walking, the lifting, the listening – a peaceful, maybe contemplative day without the demands of brilliant sunshine beckoning you here and there and everywhere into brilliant vistas?
A quiet, thoughtful day moving through the damp forest, seeing things I’d never even notice or know existed on the busy streets of life. A twisted torture of branches; a sharp tangle of thorns, a solitary evergreen holly, a path forever saying come to a faithful companion. Colors and patterns of superabundant nature – green, brown and beige, radiating like starlight in a teardrop. Heaven obscured to a wet earth which, even on a murky day, held the promise of light in brilliant hues.
After a sawtooth day of short ups and downs, I came to Woody Gap, wet and ready to dry out. AWOL referenced (pg.11) just before the 3198′ elevation at the right margin of the Guide. When such references appeared, you could go to the page noted and find a full description of hostels and motels (with prices, telephone numbers, laundry and other services), stores, the amount of resupply available at each, restaurants, maps and much more.
Page 11 lists Hiker Hostel at the top of the left column with symbols indicating: bunk sleeping, Passport stamp available, laundry, shuttle, WiFi, computer, will hold mail. Then the telephone number, web address and a full description of items noted by the symbols.
I was able to call Hiker Hostel on my cell phone and was told the shuttle would be at the AT/Woody Gap intersection in about 30 minutes.
The shuttled showed up on time and for reasons connected with an imagination dislodged from reality and filled with the sense that I was on my way, moving forward, leaving the start of the trail behind and truckin’ northbound, I was stunned to see Josh Saint in the driver’s seat of the shuttle.
I was having an out-of-the-body experience which ended very quickly as I came to grips with the fact that I was not very far from the start of the trail and, contrary to my unspoken imaginings, I had not left Springer in the dust or distant mud. I was still very much in the neighborhood of the very beginning of the AT and that’s where Hiker Hostel was. Little wonder AWOL included it as a place to stay from Woody Gap.
So Josh took a slightly deflated hiker back to where it all began a
few nights before to dry out for the next push north. We arrived at the hostel around 9:30 p.m. and this time I was shown upstairs to a large loft area where a girl was working at the only available computer station. We passed her and entered a very clean and neat room with its own bath and two double-decker bunks. I took the bottom one to the right, made the bed with the sheets neatly folded at the bottom and laid out the section of work-out pad for Theo. I showered and cleaned up but have no recall about supper. The hostel meal was well over, I’m sure. So I had a protein or Cliff bar for supper.
I plugged my phone in to recharge. The outlet was at the lower half of the bed in the baseboard to the left. My head was near a window opposite the door into the room. The recharging cord was just long enough that I could put the phone on the bed frame near my head by the window.
A final note for the day: All one really needs to do the trail is gear, AWOL and determination. Trail maps are not needed because one just follows the 2″x6″ white blazes on trees or rocks and the occasional arrow there or on roads. And there are signs at significant points saying how far something is off the trail or how far to the next shelter or campsite. In the Shenandoah, the signs were 4-sided, concrete posts with names and miles stamped in metal bands near the top.
As I turned in, Theo was on the pad below the window.
Day #3 Hightower Gap > Woody Gap (Hikers Hostel) 11.8 miles