Damascus, VA - Caretaker

Later that evening after dinner, we visited with him a second time at shelter about 100 yards up a side trail. He sat & talked with us for awhile, telling us more of his adventures. Again, he seemed very nervous that the local guy was going to show up. He went into the 3 sided Adirondack style shelter and produced the shelter’s log book as justification for his concerns.

The log book was a spiral bound notebook, like I have seen at many shelters. Typically, those who use the shelter will record a few thoughts for those who will follow. The entries usually include the date, weather and other random comments. However, the log that Jeremiah showed us, contained pages of entries in the same hand writing, supposedly penned by the local caretaker. While we only had time to glance at a few pages, Jeremiah told us some of the guy’s sad tale. Apparently he had a wife with drug problems who ran off and left him. He was raising their young child on his own when she suddenly reappeared and managed to get legal custody of the child and left town. This left him very angry and bitter. The logbook had become a collection of misogynistic ramblings and rants on how life was unfair. Jeremiah seemed convinced that if the caretaker caught him living at the shelter, he might end up a whipping boy.

As it seemed like he could just go on & on, we finally excused ourselves and made our way back to our camp for a couple of hours of pleasant conversation before retiring for the night. During the course of that conversation, we learned that our fearless leader had mapped out the route for the full day of hiking on Saturday. The plan was to continue on the Iron Mountain Trail for a few miles and then cross to the AT which would take us to the Virginia Creeper Trail where we planned to camp Saturday night.