Appalachian Trail: Day 39
Disclaimer: This post is NOT sponsored. All the gear mentioned in this post was purchased by me at retail prices. I have no affiliations with any of the companies or brands mentioned.
I woke up to rain today. Fortunately, it's a short day. Only 6.4 miles to get into the town of Erwin, TN. I wanted to get here yesterday, but wouldn't have made it until around 9 PM.
For a "mostly downhill" day, there was a lot of uphills. When I finally got over those, I was able to hike into Erwin. The trail is supposed to go over a bridge, but the bridge was destroyed by hurricane Helene.
Instead, the guide recommends a 3.6 mile detour through town. Fortunately, there is a hostel right at the edge of town where the AT comes out of the woods.
I ended up catching up with other hikers there and got a bunk for the night. Since I got there early enough in the day, I had plenty of time to shower, do laundry, and sit around talking with fellow hikers before shuttling into town for a quick dinner and resupply before heading back to the hostel.
Afterwards, a bunch of us sat around the fire pit chatting about various topics. A few of us stayed up way too late and I didn't end up heading to my bunk until 11:30. Remember that hiker midnight is 9 PM, so this is really late in hiker time. Still a good night overall.
Tomorrow, I'll shuttle to the other side of the river in the morning and start hiking in for a couple days before shuttling from a gap to Damascus for Trail Days.