Dispatch from Damascus, Virginia -- October 6, 2004

Honored Readership,

Damascus.

I'm amazed, overwhelmed to be here. In the early days of the hike then distant trailtowns held a certain mystic surrealism, a mythical allure that belied their existence or any hopes of ever reaching them no matter how plucky or confident I ever felt. Damascus is not only no exception but practically the rule.

Called by hikers "the friendliest town on the Trail, Damascus, VA truly is the seminal trailtown -- home to Traildays, the annual gathering of once, have-been, and forever thru-hikers. Damascus is astoundingly, though never oppressively, friendly.

The Trail follows the main street through town. All major services are within arms' reach. Outfitters are stocked with whatever a hiker could ever need, plus the panoply of extravagent items -- titanium espresso cookers, cotton t-shirts, boot-shaped bottle opener keychains.

Tonight I worked for a local fellow who needed three heavy, cast-iron radiators moved into a house he's renovating. 20 minutes sweaty labor, 20 bucks. I put the Jackson straight in the donation box at "The Place," thinking that any money (practically) given to me here should stay here.

I am currently sitting on my second zero day here in town. On my 28-miler into town I gave my feet a bit of a tear and have decided that I can afford to give them some rest.

As far as hiking goes, it's been the same love affair with Virginia. This state is absolutely -- as my aunt Debba would say, Elysian. Long rolling hills. Often magnificent mountains. Climbs, never all that difficult. But, here's the thing. Virginia's mountains, while slower to climb and easier underfoot, afford some absolutely amazing feelings. On this last day into Damascus I came down from 5200 to about 2200, the first few miles of which were (though not above treeline) on great grassy balds from which I could see forever and ever. I could see the Smokies and the Shenandoahs in one turn of my everwilling head. And on that day my head was swimming with thoughts of why I walk and why I've always loved to walk.

And, almost of the same train of thought, my mind was working with anti-automotive sentiments, maledictions against our almost exclusively automotive society. Just as I was thinking thoughts of how great and grand and beautiful and potent and serene I felt walking big miles over big terrain, I was thinking the same rather hateful thoughts I was trying or aiming to emote back in Troutville when my timeframe prevented me from writing further. In that town especially it is easy to begin to hate cars. As a hiker, distance takes on new meaning; miles are earned, not overcome, not dreaded. As I walked to the Food Lion in Troutville to resupply on Lipton dinners and Snickers bars, private cars snarled past, formidable monsters that cared less for me than the asphalt which bore them hence and thither. These, combined with other more elevated sentiments, have contributed to my heightened antipathy toward the automobile. Not only is this machine threatening to me, as a pedestrian, but I wonder careless wonders as to the occupants of those pods rushing along the paved tomb that has become American transient consciousness. And call it arrogance, but I am so thankful, feel so blessed, that I have these two proud, able legs to convey my own consciousness down the eastern seaboard, seeing, hearing, meeting, tasting, god, it could go on and on. Much as Thoreau and Emerson variously agreed, "The swiftest traveler is he who travels afoot," and "Man has invented the carriage but lost the use of his feet."

More so than I pity and condemn the sedentary folks I often encounter, I revel in my own swiftfootedness. I love and thrive on the fact that I walk along mountain ridges and can see on my right and left two towns that, one hundred years ago, were sufficiently isolated so that, likely, only a handful of residents had met their overmountain neighbors. This unique perspective, this unlikely gift afforded to me by me own two feet resonates harmoniously with my own life purposes and counters handsomely those vindictives issued by my last-century American thinkers.

For lack of a more conclusive ending (because, again, I have to go) I am everso overflowingly thankful for my own two ironsided feet and strong, pistoning legs for allowing me to see my own country in the context it deserves. Slow, self-sufficient, purposeful, appreciative -- NO! -- reverent.

I have, give or take, a month left of this hike. 460 miles to be precise. How did it become so finite? How did the once insurmountable tally of miles dwindle to a number I could dread finishing too quickly? As I wrote to another friend, I cannot stretch these last few miles out enough. I cannot squeeze enough goodness out of them. For any of you, beloved Readership, wondering how I could have done this, I will have you know that, though I haven't cried yet once on this hike, when I finish on Springer Mountain in GA, I will very likely be met by some hot hot tears when this Trail that I have called home for 5 months is no longer kissing and cushioning the ground beneath my feet.

I have loved few things in my life like I've loved this Trail.


Me, Bjorn