Erwin de Mayo and the Roan Washout
On May 5 we celebrated a combination of our planned and anticipated Erwin Day and the traditional Cinco de Mayo, a new holiday I called Erwin de Mayo. We kicked off the festivities with a whirlwind tour facilitated by local friend Shane. We started with a massive barbecue feast in Johnson City, followed by stops at the outfitter and Wal-Mart for resupply.
The next day we rode loaner bikes from the hostel into downtown Erwin for food and more shopping. The local skate park was a fun diversion, and it was nice to move fast for a change. In the afternoon we played cards, then I joined the half of the group opting to hike out rather than spend another night at the hostel.
On the leg out of Erwin we saw a new set of faces around us, on pace to arrive at the Trail Days festival. I ended up in an even smaller subset of my group intending to get ahead of the festival bubble and shuttle backwards into Damascus. On the way up to Roan Mountain, we walked into the first major rain downpour. We were thoroughly soaked and the trail turned into a creek. The trail maintainers do a good job of designing and implementing drainage, but it only goes so far; when the rain is heavy, you're going to be walking through a ditch full of water.
We ducked into Roan High Knob shelter to get out of the rain, but as soon as we stopped moving we started to get cold. We tried to hang clothes to dry, but nothing got dry. After sitting in sleeping bags for a few hours, we put our wet clothes back on and hit the trail.
In team settings I find it helpful to have a small but consistent ritual to keep minds centered and morale out of the gutter. Lately I've been using a motto:
Every day is hard, every day is worth it.
Another hiker had extra seats on a ride to a hostel for the night, so we took the opportunity to dodge the storm. There's nothing like getting out of the rain and directly into hot food and cold beer.
The rest of the passage through Roan Highlands was moderately wet, but conditions were good enough to remind us that we're here for the view.
Before long we were in Hampton, the final Tennessee town stop. The hostel, Boots Off, was impossibly clean and welcoming. More local friends, Josh, Tom, and Stacie, came bearing beer, cheese, and pie.
Soon enough we were on the trail to Damascus VA, with plans to achieve our longest hiking day yet: the Damascus marathon, a traditional 26.2 mile route from Iron Mountain shelter to the Marathon gas station across town.
