#75 No Business Shelter to Uncle Jonny’s Hostel in Erwin TN Day 31: ATMM 338.0 to ATMM 344.2
.....I wonder to myself, ”How I can make Hiker Trash my full-time occupation?”
Town Day!!! Hikers generally rise earlier than normal on town day. They quickly load their backpacks, haphazardly, even. Many forgo breakfast. It sometimes seems like like a race to the bottom, as though there’s not enough town to go around.
Princess and I have a shared mail drop waiting for us at Uncle Jonny’s Hostel. We’re not yet sure if we are getting our packages and moving on, or if we are going to spend the night there.
I take my morning slow: make my usual boring breakfast, break camp, and do my morning stretches before moving along. Medicine Man, Running Bear, and Blue are up early and moving fast. The three guys who slept in the shelter last night are gone already. Princess and I are putting the last items in our backpacks when Mosey walks into camp. We honestly didn’t know if we’d see one another again on this trip. But here we are. Princess moves on and I sit with Mosey for a while.
Most of the trail towns are located at the bottom of the mountains. Erwin, VA is no exception. The six-mile hike down the mountain into town is easy and gentle with several overlooks facing the very town I’ll walk into shortly. Overlooking the gap where a train bridge crosses the Nolichucky River far below, I recall lying in my tent somewhere in night listening to the ghostly cries of a train horn echoing through the mountains, sounding as though deep sorrows were being blown by a broken-hearted man through a harmonica from some distant valley. I now see the location from where the mournful cries came.
You know a town is getting closer when you begin running into more day-hikers.
I step off the trail onto the intersection in front of Uncle Jonny’s Hostel. One road passes the hostel’s right side, one wraps around its left side then up a hill, one road follows the river in the opposite direction, one road, which becomes the A.T. for a moment, crosses the river.
At the intersection I catch up with Princess. She hiked down the mountain with a trail maintenance volunteer who is responsible for overseeing the well-being of this section of trail. He’s an elderly gentleman who obviously loves the trail. Before meeting him I was thinking how enjoyable and well maintained the section was and could see areas where trail repairs were recently made.
Well done, Sir, well done.