Day 25: Leaving Hot Springs. Mile 274.8, .9 miles today. We tried to leave, really we did. We bought a 6 pack in preparation for our visit to the actual hot springs in town before we hiked out 4-6 miles. They were booked. Until 10:15 p.m. So we took our beer by the river at the edge of town, where the trail leaves the area, and drank it. And then we realized the store was only a 5 minute walk away...so we got more beer and camped just a mile out of town.
Day 26: 288.7, 13.9 today. We woke to rain, but packed our tent and hit the very big ups leaving Hot Springs. We said goodbye to our favorite food, a home-made cheese stick with salami inside! Thanks, Tavern! We got about 10 miles in to the first shelter, where Jesse wanted to call it a day. It was cold, very windy, and we were frigid. But the shelter was facing directly into the cold wind and rain, so I urged him to keep hiking, at least until we got behind the mountain and out of the wind. We managed another 4 miles (we wanted to do more, but...). Jesse lost his favorite base layer. The brown one he's been wearing pretty much daily since he bought it. He changed shirts at the shelter when we decided to move on, and even though we felt like we had another 3 miles in us, we decided to set up camp and he'd run back a ways on the trail to see if he could find it. No dice, although we heard recently that a friend of ours on the trail, a kid named 'Doc' from PA, found it, picked it up, and is now wearing it happily. We're glad to have trail magic-ed it to him!
Day 27: 306.2, 17.5 today. We started St. Patty's Day in the rain, sad we weren't in a bar. Right next to where we camped at the road was a sketchy, rundown old garage with a sign "Mom's" on it. There was a sign on the trail about 1/2 mile back suggesting that we'd find it. We walked into it, met the owners, ate Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches, and were quite pleased with the place! It was very sketch, with ripped cardboard lists denoting what was to be found in the coolers. The inside was dark, smelled and looked like my grandfather's old shed - wood burner included - but it was GREAT! The owner told us the place used to belong to his mother, hence the name. They used to make moonshine in the 50's and 60's, and the place was also once a honky tonk with 2 jukeboxes going at once (and it was tiny). I was in love. No green beer for us, but we hiked a ton of miles and met some cool people.
Day 28: 321.1, 15.9 today. We are noticing that 15 miles is the new 12 for us. Our bodies ache at the end of the day, but its not insurmountable and we still have a little more in us most days. Today, around mile 13, we reached the top of our last up, which opened into a meadow. We haven't had a lot of luck with meadows on top of mountains, or balds, but it was sunny and beautiful. It was the first nice day of hiking in a while. The last nice day we had was during our non-hiking time in Hot Springs, hiking, its been chilly, wet, or windy (or all 3) for a while.
Day 29: 338.1, 17 miles! We pushed 2 miles past the shelter so that we could get into Erwin, TN in time to 1) get McD's breakfast, and 2) get all our chores done and leave Erwin the same day. If the shelter had had a privy, we would have been more keen to stay.
Day 30: 346.2, 8.1. You know the story of Erwin and the library. We hiked in, spent all day in Erwin, googled the location of the only bar in Erwin at the library - apparently the only effective thing the internet could do there - and found the AWESOMEST hole in the wall bar. We weren't sure it was open, or if it had been in 15 years, when we walked up. But there were cars in the driveway, so we gave it a shot. I've never been scared to open a bar door for fear of being unwelcome, but I was. And I was wrong. In it sat 2 older couples, another lady, the barmaid/owner, and a cute dog named Bailey. We sat there for an hour or so and drank and chatted. Everyone was extremely welcoming and one guy offered to give us a ride anywhere we needed to go in town. Since we were going to dinnner at the Corner Grill only a block away, we kindly refused, but we thought we might come back after dinner, buy a round, and hope the offer was still available. It wasn't necessary because we struck up a conversation with another great couple at dinner, the Byrds, and they gave us a ride back to our packs which were being babysat by Uncle Johnny's hostel. While the town was spread out and not very libation friendly, the people were amazing. And we hear that the ribs at Hawg and Dawg are not to be missed. Other NOBO thru hikers, if you're going thru on a Friday, call Hawg and Dawg on Thursday and have them put a rack on for you. Apparently that's what the locals do so they don't miss out. Thanks, Erwin!
Day 31: 361, 14.8. We hiked hot dogs out of Erwin and when we made camp on this day, we grilled each and every one of them and ate them. Yum. Ew. We accompanied that with some buttered elbow macaroni with garlic and pepper. A feast fit for the gods.
Day 32: 376, 15 miles. Against my better judgement knowing that a storm was coming, Jesse convinced me to stay in the Roan Mtn. shelter, the highest one on the AT. I'm glad he did. It was a freaking cottage! Four walls, a door, and even cedar shakes on the sides. And with us and our friends (who have been piggy backing us since before Hot Springs), it was a nice, warm bungalow. Our friends are the only people we've seen for more than a week on the trail. They are IronMan, Extra Mile, and 'the germans', a trio of german people, only one of whom I caught a name for - Pillow. We haven't seen our younger friends, Mountain Mime and Doc, in a while. We left them in Erwin, coming in as we were leaving. I know the trail is a social place, but these are the only people we've gotten to know more than 'hey, how are ya' or the like. At this writing, the group of 5 is ahead of us, pushing to a hostel a bit further ahead. Depending on the weather, we'll see them again soon. Hopefully M&M and Doc will catch up, too. They're much faster than we are, so I expect we'll see them soon.
Day 33: 391, 15 miles. We got remote trail magic - a term I've coined for the only trail magic I had originally expected to see starting as early as we have - where a box of food or cooler of drinks is left by a roadside for hikers to decimate. The can of pepsi was A.Mazing. Caffeine is miraculous. It was snowing when we woke up at the shelter, and that turned to drizzle as we walked north. But we hit a bald at about 2 p.m., and the wind was blowing us off the trail. I literally had to use my poles to keep me from moving off trail by a foot with every step. It was 10x worse than Max Patch. It was 50 minutes of hell. I had to lean into the knee and ankle that have been bothering me to stay straight, and they were really tired when we finished. But we were frozen, so we had to keep going. Half of Jesse's beard and all of my left side were covered in ice crystals. When we got below the blowing wind, the trail was so rocky that we still couldn't stop. And my body ached. When we finally got to our campsite, I was dog-tired. But Jesse insisted we hitch to the nearby town for food. A father/daughter picked us up and gave us a tour of Roan Mtn. before they left us at the Dairyland, and Angela and her daughter Carolina Rain (pretty name, right?) and Skylar gave us a ride back to the gap near our campsite. The kindness of people on the trail never ceases to amaze me. It was 10degrees that night, so the warmth - physical and emotional - was really appreciated.
Day 34: 405, 14 miles. This was about the prettiest stretch of trail yet. We hiked 14 nice miles into a hike in/hike out shelter, Vango Abby Memorial. We're staying in the room above the bunkhouse, with t.v., and we bought eggs for breakfast tomorrow. Scotty, the owner, is a wonderful guy. We had a great chat with him when we came in, and we look forward to sending him a postcard when we finish our hike thanking him for the hospitality. Highly recommend this place to any thru hikers! We know its going to be freezing tonight, with an early morning snowstorm. So with the heat and the eggs, we're sure to get a late start. But we want to be in Damascus by Friday a.m. so we can catch the MSU basketball game. Okay, I want to be there because it's a stepping stone to getting me to a town for my birthday, basketball/beer is just the carrot I'm using to get Jesse to play along. Wish us luck, cuz that's 60 miles away...in 4 days...!
Jesse after the hell bald..
A nice vein in metamorphic rock
Thanks for the gneiss photo!
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