Trail Magic and the Almost Tragic

Once we hit that memorable mile 544, it was no rest for the weary as we continued on towards Pearisburg, Virginia. Unfortunately, our hike was anything but average.

A few days before we were to reach Pearisburg, we came across a dirt road and TRAIL MAGIC! There was a man there from the local church filling up a cooler with juice and soda. We had thanked him and were just about to move on when he asked us if we had heard about the "trouble" just up ahead of us on the Trail.

I guess he could tell from the confused looks on our faces that we had no idea what he was talking about so he began to tell us about a shooting on the Trail about 20 miles ahead of us that had happened just the day before. We were completely shocked and a little frightened, even though he assured us that the man was in custody.

As it turns out, this man, Randall Smith, was the same man who had shot and killed two hikers at almost the exact same spot in 1981, and had since gone to jail, gotten out on parole, and years later managed to do almost the same exact thing. Luckily, the two men he shot last week didn't die from their wounds and are currently recovering. Unfortunately for Randall Smith, he died in jail just a few days later, putting to rest anyone's fears that he might somehow be able to commit the same crime yet a again.

Due to the area being a crime scene, we were unable to hike through the 20 miles where Randall Smith had been (nor did we want to!) and got a ride into Pearisburg from a local. As we walked around town looking for the hostel, a newspaper reporter and his photographer approached us to interview us about the incident. Needless to say we didn't know too many of the details, only what we had learned from our Trail Angel, so we were quite surprised when we walked into the gas station the next day to find our picture and quotes on the front page of The Roanoke Times (roanoke.com, the 5/12 edition).

Next up on our agenda? TRAIL DAYS! Our plan is to be right around Catawba and charm some drivers into taking us back south to Damascus ("the friendliest town on the trail") to enjoy all the hiker-related festivities. We absolutely can't wait to see what all the fuss is about...and don't worry, we'll take lots of pictures!