We made it into Erwin, TN today, and we decided to spend the night. It rained pretty much all night last night. Nothing torrential, but just a constant moderate sprinkle with moments of lighting and thunder. It continued into morning, and we stayed in bed until about 9, as we wanted to see if it would stop. It didn’t so we packed up in the rain. There really is nothing quite as annoying as packing up a wet tent. Or rather… packing a wet rainfly in with a dry tent and ground cloth. We got an extra garbage bag today during our resupply to make sure we can separate wet stuff from dry stuff.
I didn’t take a lot of pictures on the trail today, as it was just wet, and foggy, and really not overly pleasant. We did 11.4 miles into Erwin, which put us right at Uncle Johnny’s Nolichucky Hostel and Outfitter. They had a few beds left in the bunkhouse, so that’s where we’re spending the night.
It’s another unique little place that’s really only in existence to support thru- hikers. For $20 you get a mattress, a shower, a shuttle into town, and a place to relax for a bit. There’s a few animals, including a dog named Jerry Garcia, who’s actually asleep and snoring on the couch in the bunk room right now, and a few cats, one of which just dominated a moth in the bunk room… better than a bug zapper!
It sounds like the next few days might be pretty dead on the trail, since a lot of hikers are hitching or getting shuttled up to Damascus for Trail Days this weekend. We’ve decided to just keep on hiking. We’ll miss trail days, but that’s okay, we’ll reach Damascus in about a week, and start making up some miles after our week off.
