day 63

today we awoke on the floor of the church and made some oatmeal for breakfast and packed up getting ready to take on hayters gap which was supposed to be our 2nd hardest hill to climb for the remainder of our trip. it looked like it was going to storm outside so i was already packed up and decided to head out a few minutes earlier than evan (he's better at climbing hills than i am so i knew he'd catch up). it was a twisty hilly road that led to the base of hayters gap and i stopped myself before i started and a group of 3 cyclists came down and chatted with me for a bit since they came from massachusetts. we went our separate ways and i started the gruesome climb that everyone has been talking about. it really wasn't as bad as everyone had told us, mainly because coming from the east is about twice the climb as the way evan and i were going so that helped and it was just a gradual slope with some switchbacks up to the top then a scary winding downhill which i had to stop a couple of times to let my brakes cool off. once at the bottom we hauled it all the way to damascas where the appalachian trail meets up with the transamerican route so we stopped off at dairy king to get some lunch and cool off since it was super hot out. we then roamed around the small town and visited their rei-esque camping supply shop then headed on our way to troutdale. on our maps there was supposed to be a long drawn out climb to troutdale but it was only a 1 or 2% grade the whole way, i was surprised when i pulled into town cause i was expecting the climb to be around the next bend! so we grabbed some dinner at a local and only diner. there is a biker/hiker hostel at a church in town with 2 rooms with bunkbeds, power, a toilet, and showers so we stayed the evening there with two hikers who were only out on a 3 day trek, not the full AT hike. we kept to ourselves and showered, read, and just relaxed. we then had a rough night of sleep.