Two young and ambitious thru-hikers decided at the last minute to do just this when we were heading out of Kincora. John Wayne and Maniac had helped out Bob Peoples the previous day in trail maintenance and got all caught up in the whole aura of the trail.
Most of us started out on this 54 mile stretch early in the morning assuming that it would take us three days - maybe four. We started out at about 8:00 am. John Wayne and Maniac ended up getting a late start that morning and we did not see them all day until we were finishing up our dinner at Vanderventer Shelter...17.4 miles - a good day for me. They ate a huge meal at the shelter and left I would say at about 7:00 pm to complete the remaining 35 plus miles of their journey. Figured no way would they be able to pull this off given their late start. Of course, it rained all night as they were hiking through the night. When we woke up (did we sleep that night?) the next morning we wondered whether they even survived.
Ended up bumping into them in Damascus yesterday as we arrived. Turns out they didn't complete it in a legit way because they were so soaked and tired they had to stop at a beat up unused log cabin shelter for about three hours with about 14 miles to go.
So John Wayne was talking over dinner about this notion of hiking in a more "consistent" manner - instead of doing a bunch of zeros coupled with a 40 mile hike (attempted 54).
Kincora to Damascus would be Rough! We did 30 miles from Watauga Lake but stopped around midnight 10 miles short of Damascus. Some friends of ours made the whole 40 though. It was a fun challenge but I hobbled like an old man the whole time I was in town.
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