Thursday, June 9th

Sam’s Gap (319.8 mi) to Uncle Johnny’s Hostel (344.2 mi)

Hiking Miles: 24.4

Total Ascent: 5,290.7 ft

Total Descent: 7,367.5 ft

Total Grade: 519.1 ft/mi

Steps: 56,196

Slack Pack Day! We each ate a breakfast sandwich and pancakes before leaving, but we got a late start (8:22 am at the Sam’s Gap Trail Head) because “Lard” and his hyper-extended knee slept in and arrived late for breakfast. In fact, he limped in just before Amy’s shuttle was leaving. Amy politely told him he could eat in the van because we all needed to get going.

Today’s weather was great, dry and cool, but extremely windy at times. We hiked 24 miles in 8 hours and 15 minutes. I was grateful for carrying just a day pack because despite the great weather, there were many ascents and descents today and a total average grade of 519 feet/mile. The last mile of our run to Uncle Johnny’s was ALL downhill, In fact, we literally ran the last 6 miles in 1.5 hours to make sure we caught the last Uncle Johnny’s shuttle into Erwin for dinner and a small resupply.

I felt great – much better than yesterday with both hiking and running. Chloe had a great day as well slackpacking without poles, enjoying every minute. She is so positive! With approximately 4 miles to go before reaching Uncle Johnny’s, we informed her that the shuttle left at 4:30 pm, and asked her if she minded running there ahead of us whereas she was much faster. That way, there was hope of her asking the driver if he would wait 5 minutes for us to follow up. She indeed made it, however it turned out that the shuttle wasn’t leaving until 5 pm (so we received some bad intel). Stevie and I arrived at 4:37 pm, and apologized & thanked her. We felt bad that she had to run that fast, but she was cool with it. Again – she was very positive!

We checked in with the hostel keeper, Drew, purchased 40 cent Snickers bars ( 2 each – an Uncle Johnny’s Special), along with some Gatorade, Powerades, and Dunks Iced Coffee for the morning. We got Cabin “J” that had 4 beds (2 bunks) to ourselves so we each took a lower bunk. We resupplied once we got to Erwin at the Food City grocery store, and we ate chicken dinners at Bojangles. There were only fast food places that we could see in town. We were still hungry, so we also ate a large fruit bowl from the supermarket, and Mocha Iced Coffees from Dunks.

We sat and talked with other hikers at a table in front of Food City while we waited for our return shuttle. One hiker (around my age) named “Sunshine” told us a funny (well, maybe not so funny) story about how he and his wife were not getting along after they both retired, so he left to hike the “AT”. He is definitely here for the long haul because she refuses to pick him up. That’s motivation if I ever saw it! And we also met this amazing 16-year old named “Smiles” (from Utah), real name Bryce, who was hiking alone on his high school summer vacation. He purchased a Taco Bell Crunch Wrap, and Stevie was so jealous. And another hiker was only 120 miles away (Damascus, VA) from completing his full hike on the AT.

After returning to the hostel, we pretty much chilled the remainder of the evening. I talked with Teresa and she had just finished her second yoga class, and learned some new challenging poses. She also rode with Kathy DeLacy today in her convertible with the top down, and had lunch at Not Your Average Joe’s. Too much information – they both ordered salads that had a crunchy sand-like consistency which turned out to be seasoned salt. Kathy also discovered that Teresa was the kind person who left cool cards in Pat Harvey’s mailbox a year ago that displayed a photo of the flowers Pat draped around her mailbox post. Great Day!

And lastly, we also met a girl named “Little Foot” at Uncle Johnny’s who looked just like Tarryn when she was younger and had Doppleganger braids. I had to do a double take at first, and I had to take a photo.