Hardcore

On the Saturday of Trail Days, I had no more gear errands to run, so I checked my email at the public library and then wandered around to see more people. I ran into some former guests from Nekton who had both hiked the trail, and plenty of current thru hikers who had been reading my shelter journal entries. I had one person tell me that they were starting to get too short, and I need to stop slacking. The most random encounter was after the hiker parade (or giant water ballon fight). I was with Peacock and Vagabond, and Vagabond started talking to someone he knew. That person asked if Vagabond knew Tangent. Since I was right there I asked why he was asking for me. It turns out that Bilgerat is currently taking a seven month leave from Nekton where he is an engineer on the Rorqual. We spent some time together and it runs out that he even started the same day I did, but I have been hiking faster and we had never met.
Sunday was the start of Hardcore. Bob Peoples, the head of the Tennessee-Eastman Trail club had a brain storm a couple of years ago. Lots of hikers come back to Damascus for Trail Days, and a lot of them want to give back to the Trail. There are also some projects that just need a large number of in shape people to complete. Put the two together and a lot of good work can be done. This year there were two sections of trail that needed to be rerouted. The first section was by Iron Mountain, and the second was coming off of Jane Bald. So for two days we were given large tools and a couple of instructions. The trail should be three feet wide, and you should have about a 45 degree angle on the uphill side. Other than that just make the trail like you want to hike it. Sunday was a cold rainy day and the new trail was super slick at the end of the day. There were several slips and near spills, but no major accidents. At the end of the day we were able to open up that section. That meant that there were new white blazes to be painted and old ones to be removed. So I now have one blaze going Northbound on the AT that is mine. I helped build the trail and I painted a blaze.
On Sunday we went to Jane Bald which is a little beyond Roan Mountain and went to work again. This time it was breezy and sunny and a perfect temperature for working. I was in a short sleeve shirt and long pants and not really sweating while working. This section had a lot more rock work and tree removal. We worked alomst twice as long and built about the same amount of trail. This was also one of my least favorite sections, and steep rocky decent with bad drainage, so it was nice to be able to improve it. All in all we built about 3,800 feet of new trail. To put it in perspective this is about 1/5,000th of the total trail.
Tomorrow we get back on the trail and start heading north again after about a week off the trail. I am ready to start hiking again. It is nice to come into towns and refuel, and every now and then take a day off to recover, but this break was slightly too long. Trails Days was fun, but not worth two full days. Anyway, tomorrow back on the trail to the Priest.