Week Two – First Steps in North Carolina

Greetings from the Nantahala River Gorge! We’re two weeks into the World’s Longest Footpath-Only Adventure. Here’s a summary of what’s been happening this week:

First and foremost…someone got their trail name! We were sitting around the table at the hostel last weekend, and hanging out with some of our new friends. Mimi had mentioned a rumor that her dad had wanted to name her Meadow, and I asked if she liked that name. After she said yes, a quiet passed through the hostel…one by one, our new friends said that it was perfect for Mimi and would make a great trail name! The Maine-iacs (three young nurses from Maine), Mike, our bff The Wise Jim, and a few others agreed that it was perfect for Mimi. Even Josh, who we had just met, piped up from the back and said “If anyone cares what I think, I also like it!” The name is perfect for Mimi’s sunny and warm personality, represents her history, and is Tramily (trail family) approved…doesn’t get much better than that. Welcome to the Tramily, Meadow!

Day 9: Tuesday March 28th, we woke up early at the beautiful Hostel Around the Bend and had a continental breakfast of cereal and fruit (hello guilt-free Captain Crunch!). We continued to visit with our new friends until our shuttle left at 9:30am, and we piled into an unmarked gray van for a merry and turbulent trip back to the trail where we had left off the day before. The hiking conditions were excellent: chilly and cloudy. We made good time on the difficult climb up and out of Georgia. Our friends Mike and Jules got to the Georgia-North Carolina border at AT Mile 78.1 before we did, and as we approached they held their trekking poles over the trail in an arch and gave us a countdown. As I crossed the border (just in time!) I did as graceful a happy dance as I could while wearing a 28-lb pack. Was a great feeling to finish one of the 14 states on the trail, and also to remember there’s still a long way to go! The rest of the day it gold colder and colder, and we were freezing by the time we got to our shelter for a 10.5-mile day. Ray (a disgruntled Texan) was cooking (and splattering) his food inside the shelter when we arrived, and he said that he was sleeping in his tent so the mice didn’t run over HIS face in the shelter…We also learned that the North Carolina shelters don’t have any bear boxes or cables (bummer!), so we scouted for good bear branches as we brushed our teeth…we ended up spying the same branch at the same time, and pointed and grunted our approval caveman-style as Colgate sprayed everywhere. Hilarity enaued. Hanging the bear bag was tough here because there were so many smaller branches for the rope to get stuck on, and after destroying Meadow’s tent stake bag (sorry!!) on a particularly gnarly toss, I perfected the art of tying the bear bag rope directly to a rock and using it as a slingshot instead. It was extremely cold overnight; I had to put my Sawyer Squeeze water filter in my sleeping bag to prevent it from freezing so it doesn’t either break or get clogged with ice. But we made it through another night!

Day 10, Wednesday March 29th: We woke up to a frigid but sunny morning, and packed up and started hiking as quickly as possible to avoid going totally numb. (No mice for us last night, RAY!) After a sharp climb we were treated to a frost-covered ridgetop view, and after that we hiked along the ridges for what felt like miles and miles–the longest flat stretch to date! We leap-frogged over Roadrunner, Mike, and Jules a few times, and passed a few signs for elevated bear activity between Carter Gap and Betty Creek Gap…although we had been planning to camp at Betty Creek Gap, all of a sudden we found the energy to push on a few miles to mile 99.4 for a total of 13 miles for the day. We ended up camping with Mike and Jules, where we made a campfire and laughed at poor Jules for having WAY too much food. Mike wasn’t feeling well so we gave him a salted GU packet and some cheesy bacon grits to hopefully balance his diet of gummy bears and Twix bars. After hanging the confounded bear bag, it was Sleeping Bag O’Clock once again.

Day 11, Thursday March 30th: We again woke to a gorgeously clear sky and caught the rainbow of the early dawn light as I retrieved the bear bag, much less confounded on retrieval. We packed up camp and made the one mile trek up to the Albert Mountain Fire tower, which was probably the most fun section to hike so far. The climb was extremely steep and rocky, and was just a hoot to scramble up. Once we got to the top of Albert Mountain, the view of the surrounding North Carolina mountains was breathtaking. Climbing the stairs up to the top platform was terrifying; the thin metal stairs seemed rickety and flimsy after pounding away at 99 miles of dirt and rock. But the view was worth it!

At the top, Jules mentioned that it reminded him of Lord of the Rings, and we proceeded to sing a grating and horrible rendition of the Rohan theme song…I’ve been working hard to keep my LotR fanship under wraps, and I didn’t even have to bring it up! It felt good to be among my people. After tearing ourselves away from the sprawling mountain view, we had a beautifully flat (mostly) hike for the rest of the day. The terrain in North Carolina seems overall a lot flatter than in Georgia, but there are still plenty of gaps with their telltale climbs and descents. We passed the 100-mile mark on the trail, and did another celebratory dance.

We also passed by a prescribed burn area, and the smoke and flames were visible from several miles away. The smoke was actually a bit of a nuisance in several parts of the trail, and we hiked to the Siler Bald Shelter on the other side of the ridge to get some clean air to sleep in. The “shelter” looked more like an axe-murderer’s woodshed than a safe sleeping refuge, but after a bangup job hanging the bear bag (was a real crowd pleaser!) we piled into the murderer’s woodshed and had a good night’s sleep.

Day 12, Friday March 31st: We woke up to threatening rain and put on all of our rain gear just in case. We had to stop approximately eight times between 8am and 10am to make wardrobe adjustments because we were either too hot, then too cold, then sure it wasn’t going to rain, then it rained, and so on. I also had to make a few calls for bank stuff, and since cell service is sporadic I had to seize the opportunity when it was available. And so, after several hours of hiking, we had only made it a few miles. But we persevered to Wayah Bald Firetower, where we were met with some serious Trail Magic. A previous Thru-Hiker named Pop Rocks, who had held the AT in 2019 and the Pacific Crest Trail in 2022, wanted to support the AT community that he loved so dearly…and it was a game changer! He had hot dogs, chips, cookies, other snacks, beer and soda, and amenities like a few chairs, hand sanitizer, and a muscle massager. We ate A LOT of food and hung out with the group for a short time before trudging the Hot Dog Slog for a few miles to make it to the next shelter.

We were lucky to grab a spot in the small shelter because we knew it was going to storm again that night. We forced ourselves to eat dinner even though we weren’t hungry, hung the bear bag (again) and settled in for the night. A sweet, retired nurse named Bright Spot who was bunking next to me said goodnight, and casually added that she has restless leg syndrome…and boy, did she ever. I never thought that I would ever spend a night in the North Carolina wilderness trying to sleep while getting nudged, knee’d, and roundhouse-kicked by a kind 60-something woman chasing her dreams on the Appalachian Trail…but there’s a first time for everything. Luckily for me, the storm that night was far worse than a few good kicks in the back. The wind howled around the shelter as rain pelted the roof and lightning brightened my window into the world at the shelter’s open side. At one point I heard a huge CRACK followed by a WHUMPF–a large tree had split and fallen. I was sure that it was the tree that held our bear bags, just to spite our efforts at hanging them properly. (Spoiler alert, our food bags were wet but still hanging from an unbroken tree the next morning). Eventually the weather calmed to allow the sun to rise, seemingly a little later than usual due to the darkness of the storm. We survived another stormy night in a shelter! The photo below is a frame from a video I took from inside the shelter when a lightning strike lit up the rhododendron bushes outside the shelter.

Day 13, Saturday April 1: We took our time getting up in the morning since the weather was still rainy and very foggy, but eventually we set out in the rain with our rain gear and pack covers in full flag. After about 15 minutes it stopped raining, and while the windy air was pretty cold the clear air was still extremely pleasant. We splashed through the trail puddles and made the trek down to Tellico Gap. But we were interrupted, when Nick appeared! He had driven basically though the night to meet us at this Gap, and he was a welcome sight indeed. It was so amazing to see him and share some additional trail stories as we walked back to the car. Didn’t hurt that he brought us carbs, either!

After a quick pack switch-out, Nick gave us our first chance to “slack pack,” or carry a smaller pack without all of our extra stuff in it, for the 8 additional miles to the Nantahala Outdoor Center where we are staying this weekend. Without the total weight of our packs, and with Meadow in new trail runners and ditching her heavy boots, we seemed to just float along at first, racing up our first climb to the Wesser Bald Firetower. The rest of the 8 miles traversed almost peacefully, other than the wicked wind and sun coming out with a vengeance after it’s defeat during the storm yesterday. There were large, newly-downed trees all over the trail, some of which were nearly two feet in diameter. I was again thankful to have been in a shelter during whatever weather would have caused enormous trees to be twisted into splinters like they were toothpicks. As for the slack packing experience, 11 out of 10 would absolutely slack pack again. Eventually we got to the Nantahala OC, showered, rested our tired and aching feet (and knees!), amd went to dinner. We destroyed a plate of seasoned fries, and Meadow had a salad after a weeklong craving for vegetables that haven’t been dehydrated, I went for the less-fibrous route of a Carolina trout cake sandwich and Mac and cheese. The power was out in our rooms when we got back from dinner, so after the sun went down we still had to use our headlamps to use the bathroom.

Day 14, Sunday April 2: We awoke around 6:30am and did some serious damage to some of the pastries that Nick brought us from Pittsburgh, and set off for another 14-mile slackpack. The clear morning was quite cold (in the 40s) but the sun was already gracing the ridgetops as we started the largest continuous climb we’ve had so far. For almost 8 miles we climbed almost 3500 feet of elevation gain, doing our penance for thinking that North Carolina was flatter than Georgia. The cloudless sky and crisp temperatures were joined by a frigid wind that froze my right ear and the fingers in my right hand as it blew in from the northeast, but I was happy to have an excuse not to sweat profusely. We met Sun God again, an effusively positive and exuberant Thru-Hiker who wears a sort of loose hiking skirt that made us both jealous. He asked us how we were feeling before turning to face an expansive Nantahala Rover Gorge Vista view and screaming “BEAUTIFUL!!” at the top of his lungs. He told us his niece’s name was Meadow too, and gave us both fist bumps before zipping further up the trail. When we got to Cheoah Bald at the peak, we took a(nother) snack break and I dutifully applied sunscreen to my face, arms, and scorched neck before sitting to enjoy the view.

On the way back down the other side of the mountain, we ran into Nick again! He had parked the car at the other end of our slackpack route and was hiking backward to meet us. He gave us some gummy bears and excellent company on our way back to the car. When we reached Stecoah Gap, we found some trail Magic that had been set up, and again ate way too much food. I met someone who worked at a training organization that I had taken training courses from in Oak Ridge Tennessee, proving that the world is a small place after all. There was a sandwich station, grapes and oranges, cookies, jelly beans, sodas, you name it. The guy that brought the Wendy’s crispy chicken sandwiches (YUM!!) gave us cards with scriptures on them, and told us that he tries to do Trail Magic during the Hiker Bubble at least 3 or 5 times a week, which is genuinely incredible. He left us with the following Irish benediction: “May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, may the rain fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”

After a 30-minite drive back to our lodgings, our plan for the afternoon is to do laundry, shower again (luxury at its finest!), get organized to leave tomorrow, and buy our Thru-Hiker Backcountry permits for the Smokies. After waffling about my shoe choices, I decided to also ditch my beloved boots in favor of my lighter but still hardy trail running shoes. I think my foot pain is mostly being caused by the instantaneous 30-lb weight gain from my pack, and I’m hoping to avoid Achilles tendon issues potentially being caused by my boots. Worst case scenario I can always switch back next time Nick comes to visit.

In looking ahead to the week before us, we will be in Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Tuesday morning. Although the last two weeks have been physically challenging, I realized that I’ve been viewing the Smokies as the first true test. Instead of feeling nervous, at this point I’m just excited. Spirits are still soaring high as Meadow and I are both so proud of what we’ve done so far, and we can’t wait to put ourselves up against the Smokies. Further up and further in!

Thanks for stopping by!