Before coming to the AT, I didn’t even know what Trail Days was. Since I learned about it from the group that I hiked with in the very first week, I have been extremely stoked to go. Trail Days is an annual festival in Damascus, VA where gear vendors, trail magicians, bands, and hiker trash crowd into this small trail town to celebrate their hikes, reunite with friends, and party. We made a pact week 1 that even though we all got separated we would meet up this weekend, and I was so looking forward to reuniting with old friends we’ve shared the trail with for a couple minutes, days, or even weeks.
We finally caught up to the bubble before Trail Days! This night at camp had 21 people!! Jeez!
Shuttle Ride from Hell
After hiking four 20+ mile days, we made it to Pearisburg, VA where we planned to catch a shuttle ride back to Damascus. These days were challenging – not because of the long miles, but more because each day rained hard nearly the entire time. We joked we were “aqua blazing” since every day we would put our wet socks and shoes on and walk right through the river that is also the trail. It was a mental game, morale was low, and the only thing keeping our spirits up was our triple zero that was coming up at Trail Days.
Bridges looked more like a dock
Our shuttle ride was only $20, so I really shouldn’t complain. But, it was a large van where every seat faced inwards (like we were jumping out of an airplane) and the car ride was over three hours. I haven’t been in a car for more then 10 minutes in almost two months so this made the ride feel twice as long. I also get extremely carsick in a regular car setup so this inward facing ordeal had me fighting nausea the whole time. Everyone else was feeling it too, probably because we had to pick up a hiker at Woods Hole Hostel which sits at the top of the world’s windiest dirt road. Heads back. Eyes closed. Everyone was suffering on this ride.
Including this picture from a few nights ago when we had the most delicious farm-to-table dinner at Woods Hole Hostel (an AT classic hostel)
Into the Chaos
When we finally made it into town, I felt so dehydrated and hungry. We were immediately bombarded with booths of people welcoming us to Trail Days and promoting their events. Foot massages, free food, first aid tent, Smokey the bear. It was too much for me to think about, especially because we started seeing people we knew immediately after we got off the bus. Our goal was to make it to Tent City and set up but we kept getting stopped reconnecting with someone or taking a side quest to a free food advertisement.
How could we say no to a photo with Smokey the Bear?
The most notable reunion from this time is when we ran into Pumba. Pumba was one of our closest friends week one and he had to get off for a couple weeks due to a toe injury. He’s back on trail now and it was emotional to see him again. Picture slow motion running and jumping and screaming. The entire weekend felt like reuniting with old friends even though we knew people at most for a month and half..
Tent city was a much longer walk then we anticipated and we quickly realized our three “zero” days were not going to be anything close. We passed by a set up of trailers a church had doing laundry and offering showers and finally made it onto the field. I have never seen so many tents in my life. What’s even crazier is the entire woods behind tent city is also filled with tents. The setups actually blew my mind and you could tell pretty quick which groups were not first time tent citiers. I would estimate there are close to 1,000 tents set up in total on the field and woods. We set up on the field since we heard that the woods gets pretty rowdy and we didn’t intend to be up until 4 am.
Can’t get the scale of all the tents in one photo…
Strider setting up our wet tent
The rest of the day went by extremely quick as we tried to get our bearings of the lay out, sign up for raffles, and continue to talk to people and make plans for the night. We ended up going to a restaurant in town for Karaoke which was so chaotic we only stayed until 9 pm until we headed back to the drum circle…
Riff-Raff Parties Hard
If I were to describe the crowd at Trail Days, it feels pretty similar to when I’ve gone to Dead & Co. shows with my dad. Very friendly and loving people, just looking to have good time. Iceberg’s wife drove down and told us that she was surprised how all of the hikers have such a “hippy” vibe. We told her this is not who we are usually hiking with. Trail days draws a certain crowd for sure and one of the most famous parts is the Riff Raff crew. This is what I gathered about Riff Raff from getting to know some members, (probably not entirely accurate): Riff Raff has gone to trail days for 20 years and is known for their parties and trail magic. To be apart of the crew and get a Tshirt you need to do trail magic for the whole week and then you can spend the three nights partying at Trail Days as an official member. They take pride in having the largest fire (by a lot) and also the most fun.
We had a great time drumming in the drum circle and dancing around the fire that night. It was a lot of fun seeing all our trail friends out of our usual setting up going to bed at 7:30 PM and listening to loud music around laser lights. At night in the woods, people use laser machines and crazy tent setups to make trippy lighting in the trees nothing like I’ve seen before. It was pretty awe inspiring to just walk around and absorb it all.
The famous Riff Raff logo
Our friend Jimbo got inducted into the squad (checks out) and hooked us up at the open bar
Dancing around the fire to the drum circle “music”
4 am Tornado Watch
We went to bed at around midnight and I was woken up by a sudden gust of strong wind that seemed like it was about to knock our tent over at 3 am. I heard canopies snap nearby and instinctively put my hands over my head as I knew that they were probably blowing our way. When nothing hit us, I unzipped in the wind and saw lightning illuminating the whole sky, loud rips of thunder, and a very strong wind. I looked at the radar on my phone and saw that some very intense red/purple spots were headed our way. My heart started racing as I continued to hear canopies and people yelling at each other to see what we should do. After maybe 30 minutes of this storm, we heard police sirens and the flood lights on the field were turned on, illuminating our tent. This is when I got really anxious, my mind going to worst case scenario as my phone was warning me that the Tornado Warning just got upgraded to Tornado Watch. I have never camped in a Tornado Watch before, never mind on an open field with a bunch of other metal objects ready to go airborne.
Screenshot from my phone in the morning…
We heard first responders going up and down the tents asking if everyone is okay and telling us if a tornado touches down they will turn on the tornado sirens and everyone needs to go to the church. Imagine that. I sat in my sleeping bag shaking like a chihuahua with the flood lights remaining on for the remainder of the storm. Eventually and oh so luckily, the storm died down, the lights turned off, and I finally drifted to sleep again.
The next morning, the field was muddy with rain and many people’s tents were soaked through. We found out from friends that there were tornados in other states from the same storm system where people had died. There were rumors on Facebook that people had died in tent city last night due to the flying canopies. That’s not true. There were none reported injuries and the first responders reacted quickly to keep everyone safe. The church allowed hikers to sleep inside if they were too anxious to be outside as well. Everyone took care of each other and checked in on each other in the morning. Jimbo told us how he helped to evacuate a bunch of tents right on the river bed, a section called, “The Beach.”
I could not believe that it wasn’t a dream because the sun came out very shortly after breakfast and stayed out all day. Apparently it is tradition that it storms on trail days every year, but even veteran attendees said that was certainly a first.
Water Guns and Losing Raffles
For the rest of the day, we wandered around the vendor tents and signed up for raffles. It’s pretty cool meeting all the gear companies especially cause most of them are very small and not even able to buy in person usually. We didn’t win anything all day, but our friend Gunk gave me his Kula Kloth that he won. Kula is a reusable toilet paper for women so I appreciated that. A woman also gave me her last brat sticker which was so special to me that it made up for everything. We were kinda bummed we spent all day raffle hopping and didnt go to any of the talks at the ATC, but you had to be present at the raffle to win. That’s how they get you. If we ever come back, that will be a priority for us since there were some really interesting talks lined up.
Grand prize at Granite Gear – a Charli XCX Brat pack. A dream.
We went to the hiker parade in the afternoon, where every class starting at like 1974 walks through Main Street. Local kids spray water guns at the hikers as a tradition to give them a shower since the smell so bad. We walked with the original crew from day 1 plus some people we met more recently which was really special to me.
Day 1s! From left to right – Pumba, me, Strider, Boardwalk (formerly Smokie), Iceberg, and Tree!
Kids with water guns were very serious about their job to give us a shower.
The kids absolutely soaked us, I didn’t realize they would have hoses and super soaker guns. It was so much fun and amazing to see how giant the hiker community is as well as how much support people have for us. After the parade we ran into a lady who had a super market of stuff in the back of her car and gave us an entire resupply for free! I am still in awe of how generous strangers are to hikers. I can’t wait to do my own trail magic next year.
One last party. Back to work.
That night we went to a house next to Tent City where our friend told us they were making wood fired pizzas for hikers. There was no signs for it so we walked up cautiously and were greeted by the kindest people who told us to get in line and pick our toppings. They told us they didn’t advertise the event because it would overwhelm them, so they just told a handful of hikers and the word spread fast. We got the yummiest pizza and met a bunch of other hikers as well as one young dude who is biking the Transamerica bike path! He’s doing the whole thing on less then $1,000 which is pretty amazing listening to how he making this happen.
Wood fired pizza!
Ian’s bike pack set up – his IG is @IanPaitken, his videos are great!!
That night we went back into the woods, squishing around in the mud and trying to explore more of what we didn’t see yesterday. We ran into a group of guys playing instruments and singing. They had a serious set up, with amps and microphones and a huge crowd ended up gathering to watch them play for hours. We recognized them from the talent show and could not believe how good their music sounded all together since they said they had just met. They played some dead music and Johnny Cash. We spent the night dancing!
Rave in the woods
Sparkles giving Pumba his nightly glitter look
My glitter look :p
The next morning we packed up our tent and listed our chores we had to do. We needed to ship stuff home, get some final food items for a 5 day resupply, find a ride (if we’re lucky), get permethrin for our clothes, and eat. We barely walked 5 feet from our tent when a girl named Sparkles we met last night offered to ship our stuff in the morning since it was Sunday. We made a “AT Hikers to Pearisburg” sign on the back of a Yuengling beer box and carried it around. So many people came up to us about it but we didn’t want to make anyone drive super far out of the way, we were more looking for someone already going there. In the vendor area, I decorated my Altras and got a ton of food. Our new friend, Oats, at Sawyer gave our Sawyer filters a bath and also gave us a whole new bottle of permethrin for free! I also was debating buying this “Beer or Hitch” bandana and the dude just let me take it.
This man doesn’t realize it but he just gifted me months of beer (I fold the cloth up to say “BEER” on the side of the road and it works great)
A booth was taking photos for a map where you’re from!
The sign on a back of a Yuengling Beer box that got us our ride (hearts added to make us look kind)
I met Tara Dower!!!!! The coolest professional athlete of all time, I was fan girling
Some of our close friends from trail, Junco and Pickles, introduced us to their friend, Storm, who runs the New York Trail Club. He is so passionate about protecting the trail and explained to us that because not every section of the trail is monitored and boundaries are not enforced, people take advantage of this and encroach on the trail. Trash dumpings, vandalism, etc. He explained the importance of volunteering to maintain and clean the trail once we are done. This really spoke to me and I pledged to do at least two weekends of trail maintenance back home every year, and maybe even volunteer for a board meeting position like Storm. I love fighting for something I believe in and protecting nature in any ways I can. (Hence my name Mothra, which I explained the story maybe 800 times this weekend) Anyways, Storm’s friend Lutenient Dan offered to give us a ride since he was already going up there to drop off a girl hiking the Allegheny Trail in West Virginia. Trail magic.
Storm and his booth – “Be a Guardian of the AT”
Was it worth it?
This was the most asked question by fellow hikers once we got back. My answer? 100%. Even though our three “zeros” averaged over 10 miles of walking a day and we did not win a single raffle, I am so glad we went. Trail Days was a great reminder that we are part of something bigger than us. The hiker community is full of magic and generosity and even though we’ve only been out here for two months, I feel like our connections we have made with people are in someways stronger then connections with people I’ve had for years. There is something so magical about working to complete a lifelong dream alongside 2,000 others who get it entirely, no explanation needed.
We took Sunday night off at the hostel we stayed at in town – Holy Family Hostel. This is the coolest bed I have ever slept on. I need one in my house one day
Making some of our own food finally to get back on track after partying for a couple days
Strider and the hostel caretaker, Twig! We spent two nights here hanging out with him and will miss him!!
