SInce There Is No Trail Days...This Week Let's Take The Hiker Trash Time Machine Back to '16-17

Instead of an On This Day blog, I will be doing something a little different. This will be a "This Week" blog in honor of Appalachian Trail Days in Damascus which usually happens this time annually. Well, like a lot of things it is a casualty of the Coronavirus Crisis as the 34th Annual event, scheduled for this weekend, was canceled.

You will find these on the sidewalks.

For those who don't know or have forgotten Trail Days is a weekend hiking festival that is all things AT. It is held in the small trail town of Damascus, VA, which the AT winds through. There are booths of all kinds both hiking and AT related. There is also food and the Main Event is the Hiker Parade on Saturday.

Trail Town USA.

Some of the pageantry of the Hiker Parade, circa 2017...

However, it doesn't mean you we can't take the Hiker Trash Time Machine back a few years to Trail Days past. It is a fun event where I have picked up some nice items and discovered new things (like Good To-Go meals). Hopefully next year everyone will be back in Damascus celebrating everything AT. So until then, in honor of this great event let's look back This Week...

30th Annual Trail Days (2016):

What trail days celebrate.

Our ATC hike leaders Kathyrn & Kelly.

No, Pete doesn't like Crumbsnatcher the AT Sheltermouse.

AT sign heading towards Tennessee.

ATC group hike.

Hyperlite tent/tarp.

AT Guide booth.

Church Hill Music Company.

The Virginia Creeper Trail Bridge.

A day for good old Gene...

...the Grand Marshall of the...

...hiker parade...

...it is a spectial...

...& a whole lot of fun.

31st Annual Trail Days (2017):

It is also the Post Office.

The old railroad bridge...

...that is also "the Creeper Trail."

They have an AT Survey Marker in town.

The Old Railway Caboose at the City Park...

...where Trail Days takes place.

Jennifer Pharr Davis

ATC booth.

These Katahdin signs were cool.

Damascus stand-off...

At the center of the festival.

If you need a shuttle?

Everyone getting ready...

...for a rainy Hiker Parade...

...hopefully next year!

On This Day: Outings On May Days Past

In this time of COVID-19 I haven't been out much, so I was trying to think of ideas for new blogs. I have been working on AT Section Blogs but they take time and I want to fill the gaps. So, I plan to do a series of blogs soon on the 10th anniversary of going to Europe, since I don't know when that can happen again. Anyway, why not a blog "On This Day?" 

So that is what I am going to do. I just want to say these will be mostly a few pictures with descriptions (I think that is how I will do the European ones too). So, for the first one, it will be outings I have had on May 1st...May Day.
For those who don't know this is the World Workers Holiday. So in honor of this day, the first will be a hike one-year ago the Jennings Creek Loop out of Old Forge. 

Where this May Day hike started.

The trail around the campground.

Round Knob Branch.

Spring foliage.

Round Knob Branch Falls.

A Vernal Iris.

On the more open Cowbell Ridge Trail...

...which offered vistas like this.

Old yellow blaze.

Jennings Creek Falls #3.

Crossing Jennings Creek back to Old Forage.

Old Forage Falls.

The second outing was six-year back on the Laurel Ridge Trail at Buford Dam on Lake Lanier (which I never did a blog for). Okay with that said, enjoy...

Beach on Lake Lanier.

One of the footbridges around Lake Lanier.

This footbridge is in the woods.

Laurel Ridge Trail as it runs along the Chattahoochee River.

Footbridge across the Chattahoochee River...

....Gates of Buford Dam from the bridge.

Buford Dam.

This Canada goose likes it.

Laurel Ridge Trail junction.

This is a Foundation Core drilled for Buford Dam.