Week Four – Great Smoky Mountains (Part 2) and Beyond

Hello there! It’s been a very busy week this week. Here’s what has been happening!

Day 21, Sunday April 9: We ended up finding an Easter service early in the morning at a church in Gatlinburg that was built specifically to welcome visitors and tourists which was pretty cool. After heading back to the Appy Lodge for second breakfast and another shower, eventually it was time to check out and head back to Newfound Gap to pick up the AT where we left off at mile 207.7. By the time we got there the clouds were almost completely gone, and there were National Park visitors and tourists everywhere. We were planning for a 5-day hike before the next resupply, so we carried six days of food to give ourselves an extra day in case something unexpected came up. We had also picked up some extra provisions in an effort to make up some of our calorie deficit on the trail. This means that in addition to the typical 6 days of food, I was also carrying cheese sticks, an extra bag of gummies, a 700-calorie Tastycake Honey Bun that I am affectionately calling the “sticky brick” due to its weight, some extra salty snacks, and a small summer sausage. I’ve decided that you’re not a true Thru-Hiker until you carry a summer sausage, so best to get that over with sooner rather than later. I also packed a 5-oz solid chocolate bunny to commemorate Easter and a small bag of jelly beans. After adding all of this, getting my enormous bag of food to fit into my pack was a challenge. We decided to drop down to one tent since we can both fit ourselves and all our gear in one tent, so I left my extra 2-person tent with Nick and took on as much of the other shared gear from Meadow as possible, including the stove and fuel canisters. After the resupply plus extra calories, our packs weighed more than they ever have before and we certainly felt the extra weight as we restarted the trail! The trail was a bit clogged with day hikers at first, but once we got a few miles in we went back to just seeing the occasional Thru-Hiker. The weather was very chilly but the sun was at her best without a cloud in the sky. We hiked a total of about 10.5 miles, most of these through sun-dappled pine forests. The trail was pretty rocky still, and in many places the rain from the previous days created small steams that ran directly down the hilly trail. We did hike out to an outcropping of rock known as Charlie’s Bunyon and got some great views of the huge valley below. It was cool to see the ridgetops again, rather than just dense fog cover!

Overall the miles passed without incident, and eventually we got to our shelter location. This was one of our least favorite nights on the trail so far, for two main reasons: first, the shelter was almost a half a mile off the AT which meant for a rocky descent (and a dreaded climb the next morning); a few days before this, Chris the Ridge Runner had laughed at the Thru-Hikers’ willingness to walk 2,200 miles but avoid a quarter-mile side trail like the plague. The second reason we didn’t quite enjoy this evening was the vibe in the shelter. Mother Goose and her two young boys (Buttercup, 6, and Sonic, 8) were exuberant and energetic, and a few of the older and more standoffish shelter residents didn’t really approve of their energy (or the noise). There was also an unusually high proportion of stoners who specifically hike the AT for drug purposes (self-proclaimed “green-blazers”) at this shelter, which gave the environment a different vibe. However there was still a fire in the fireplace and someone brought a harmonica, so we still got to fall asleep to some good old-fashioned Home on the Range in the flickering orange light just like the Hollywood cowboys used to.

Day 22, Monday April 10: The temperature had dropped precipitously the previous night, and it was a frigid morning. The protein bars we ate for breakfast were nearly rock solid from the cold. We stopped partway back to the trail from the shelter to filter water, and my hands lost all feeling quickly as I squeezed the ice cold spring water into our bottles. The sun seemed to rise slowly in the valley between two mountains and it stayed just above freezing for most of the morning, so we kept our long wool layers on for most of the morning despite the sunshine. I enjoyed the sunshine all the more again after the rain from a few days before, and marveled again at the moss-lined trail with pole-straight pine trees on either side. After a few miles we stopped for second breakfast at another shelter, and I decided to have the coconut almond strawberry oatmeal–definitely the favorite of all the pre-prepared meals! Yum! Eventually we tore ourselves away from the sunny shelter space and walked a few more cold, sunny, and glorious miles to a bare hilltop site that used to have an old helicopter landing pad on it. We decided to take a short break here, and it ended up being over an hour, drinking in the sunshine and, of course, eating more snacks. The space was so quiet in the absence of even a light wind, and all we could hear were the occasional insects buzzing by. Meadow and I were both surprised at how quiet it was, and just drank it all in. Eventually our friends Goose, Buttercup, and Sonic arrived and also took a break with us. I broke Buttercup’s little heart when I knew the punchline to his joke; he asked me what you call someone else’s cheese and I yelled “Nacho cheese! I’ve heard that one before!” But then I made it up to him by teaching him a new joke: “What do aliens roast over the campfire at night? Martian-mellows!” He screamed “MARTIAN-MELOWS!” and we both laughed. I also made a friend for life when I gave him some of our gummies, after checking in with mom first of course. After enjoying the open spot for just a little longer, much less quiet now with two rambunctious kids living their best lives, we moved off toward our final shelter. The afternoon miles passed a little slower than the morning miles as we were both sore and tired, but we still saw the shelter before 4:30pm. We set about cooking dinner immediately and devoured the rest of the chocolate bunny, gnawing on it like animals since I didn’t want to contaminate our medkit knife with chocolate…or vise versa. The piece of chocolate we split was larger than maybe it should have been, but besides wanting to lighten my pack by reducing the amount of food in it, we wanted to celebrate our last full day of the Smokies. Not necessarily to celebrate the journey through the Smokies being over, but celebrate our accomplishment of hiking most of the distance through the park so far, and not freezing to death (yet). The shelter and the people in it were nicer than the previous night, and we enjoyed again the use of National Park Service bear cables and falling asleep to the sounds of a crackling fire in the shelter fireplace, and Buttercup and Sonic giggling while their patient mother gave them bedtime instructions.

Day 23, Tuesday April 11: I woke up before the sun rose to an enchanting rainbow dawn, and started packing up my stuff early. We had been planning to hike 15 miles so we chose the only appropriate breakfast for the occasion…it was the sticky brick’s time to shine! We each devoured a 710-calorie, 8-oz beautiful monstrosity that is the Iced Honey Bun by the pink light of the still-rising sun…with mixed results. The good news was neither of us were hungry again until lunchtime. The bad news was, both of us felt kind of gross. The final verdict was that the weight in our food packs wasn’t worth the calories, and if we ever needed the Iced Honey Bun again we would probably split one!

Our hiking day started off with a few miles of uphill climb (shocker!) and we eventually came to a 0.6-mile side trail leading to a lookout tower on Mount Camerer. We decided to make the 1.2-mile round trip, and it was worth it! We got one last panoramic view while we were still in the Smokies, and the little lookout tower looked like a cute lighthouse. An informational panel at the lookout explained the difference between a fire tower and a fire lookout: lookouts were structures built directly on the ground or mountain surface, whereas fire towers were raised structures essentially held up by metal toothpicks to terrify potential occupants and sightseers (I’m paraphrasing here). The interior of the lookout was blocked off likely for safety and/or to prevent vandals from having easy access, but the circular walkway around the tower afforded is the views we were looking for anyway. Once again it was a chilly but gorgeously sunny day, for which I was extremely grateful.

After making our way back to the AT from our side trail, we set about the task of the approximately 7 miles of downhill plodding until we reached the end of the Smokies at Davenport Gap. The trail was not very steep, so the miles melted away before us as we raced to the exit. After depositing the second half of our Thru-Hiker permits in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park exit box to signal our exit from the park, we walked to Davenport Gap and broke for lunch (second breakfast). Neither of us wanted more sugar after our honey bun binge, so we decided on grits…although the grits recipes I prepared quickly became our least favorites, I’m happy to report that adding a quarter of a summer sausage really turned the ship around on the grits. After walking on we saw that the deciduous trees in the “lowlands” beneath the mountains had been hard at work over the last week, pushing out buds and small leaves. There was actual GREEN on the trees and more green vegetation on the ground! It was a welcome sight, even more so when we passed through a stream valley and the trail was again lined with a species of pink wildflowers we hadn’t seen yet. I saw tiny white flowers that looked like they were made of lace, pink flowers that looked like phlox (but were they?), and my absolute favorite: irises. The irises were white or purple, and the smallest I’ve ever seen at about two inches across and less than six inches tall. We also passed another waterfall with pools at the bottom that would have been amazing to sit in, if the water or air were warm enough of course.

After a few more miles we took another side trail to hit up a resupply at Standing Bear Hostel to look for another fuel canister and an ankle brace for Meadow. The place actually gave us pretty bad vibes, partially due to some of the other patrons being grumpy folks we passed on the trail a few days before (remember the unpleasant shelter?). We purchased a can of fuel, passed on the one ankle brace that was too big, and got back on the trail as quickly as we could. We ended up hiking past an FAA radio tower that had a great panoramic view of where we had been and where we were going, but to be honest it’s pretty difficult to tell one ridgeline from another from a distance. We hiked on, and once we realized the next water source was at the shelter, over 2.5 miles away, we resigned ourselves to make it there so we didn’t have to worry about tent camping without much water. As the sun dipped lower we hurried to the shelter, and whether it was the excitement from putting in our longest mileage or just delirium, we laughed and laughed the whole way there. The shelter we aimed to arrive at was called Groundhog Shelter, and we joked that it would be perfect for us Pennsylvania girls; our trail names should have been Punxatawney and Bucktooth! We also talked about we just couldn’t WAIT to hang the bear bag again, and that it wasn’t just our feet that were barking but more of a full-body bark. After we nearly got to the shelter we passed a spring, so we filtered and filled up just in case to be responsible. The shelter was small, but our friends Splash and Titus who we had stayed with before at Spence Field were the only ones there–now with their little dog Stella who they had picked back up after they left the Smokies (no dogs allowed in the Smokies Backcountry). We didn’t get to the shelter until about 6pm due to our long mileage for the day–19.7 miles in total! We did our chores quickly and ate dinner, ending with our victory Oreos to celebrate another Day Well Done…which brings me to my trail name!

My trail name is Victory. Splash is actually the one who suggested it last week after Meadow and I had our “victory Oreos”, and after a while I’ve decided that the name stuck. While I was worried at first that it sounded arrogant or presumptuous, eventually I realized that “victory” isn’t necessarily about winning or defeating something, it can also be about celebrating something well done or just something to be enjoyed (like our Victory Oreos), or about the commitment or drive to do the right thing, etc. And I’ve already expended too much thought and justification on my trail name–it really can be just about eating Oreos, too. One poor unfortunate soul on the AT right now has the trail name “Mudbag” because he pooped himself while sleeping in his sleeping bag…so I’m not complaining!

Day 24, Wednesday April 12: I stayed in my sleeping bag just a little later than usual (about 7am) since we had such a long day the day before, and the birds were singing beautifully. Eventually I had to make a trip to the smallest privy on the whole trail. At least I hope it’s the smallest–the walls only came up about three feet high, and the door banged against my knees, which meant that for anyone taller than 5’2″ it would be a little scary to use, if not completely inappropriate. We packed up and headed out after our protein bar for First Breakfast, and had a relatively steep climb all the way up to Max Patch, a large open area where the US Forest Service is doing some reclamation work. The trillium flowers were finally in bloom which was always a fun milestone for spring! We stopped right before entering the camping- and stove-ban area at Max Patch for Second Breakfast so we could finish the dreaded Cajun grits and the rest of the summer sausage. The climb up to Max Patch was steep and difficult because of its exposure and openness, but the reward was worth it–the panoramic views will never get old! We saw some signs that warned visitors to Stay Out to respect the privacy of rattlesnakes and ticks…no problem! After enjoying the sunshine for a bit longer we descended the other side of the mountain to a shelter that had seen better days and was currently housing about half the world’s population of black flies. We decided to press on another two or so miles to a small unmarked tent site where we set up camp. The trees weren’t quite as obstinately poor at having branches to hang a bear bag, so hanging out relatively light bags was no trouble. After I suggested that we split a packet of pop-tarts, we both laughed at the hilarious joke and then we each ate our own packet of pop-tarts, and then some jelly beans to top it all off. (I’m saving the Oreos for when we have less other sugar to enjoy!) We heard some really weird bird calls in the evening, one that sounded a lot like a baby crying which was unsettling, but eventually we fell asleep.

Day 25, Thursday April 13: I set an alarm for this morning so we didn’t accidentally oversleep since today was a big day–our first full resupply in town! We packed up camp and were back on the trail by just before 7:30am. The morning was warm and the sun was just rising over the high ridges, and when the sunshine finally came over the mountains it came in at a low angle, bouncing off the tops of the waving mayapple umbrellas. We made great time in the morning, partially due to our light packs after eating food out of them for four days and partially due to the gentle slopes we ascended and descended. We had several miles of downward trail to cover, and we stopped for Second Breakfast at Garenflo Gap. After some more gentle uphills and downhills we arrived at our resupply destination and the first official “Trail Town” on the AT: Hot Springs, North Carolina! We decided to get our supplies first, bit the prices at the “Hillbilly Market” were appalling. They also had a football-field size table full of Christmas Candy, and this establishment not seeming like they were planning ahead for December, we decided to check out the Dollar General next door. We were able to find most of what we needed, and I asked the cashier to pack everything in as few plastic bags as possible to minimize waste. He was the obliging type, and a few minutes later we were trundling two plastic bags of goodies that were packed so tightly I was afraid that looking at them sideways might cause them to split. We hadn’t originally planned to eat a meal at Hot Springs, but we realized that it would be a great opportunity to charge our phones (and eat some food, obviously). We went next door to the Smoky Mountain Diner and it did not disappoint! We unfortunately didn’t find much in the way of fresh food to pack for the next week, so we both ordered huge salads and sides of sweet potato fries, which were amazing. After eating everything I was already pretty full, but then the waitress asked if we wanted dessert, and casually mentioned that their cobblers and pies were featured in some famous Tennessee magazine…as if my arm needed twisting anyway! Meadow asked the waitress how big the slices of pie were, and she said about three inches, which seemed reasonable at the time. We both ordered a piece of blackberry pie with ice cream on top, and we soon found out that the waitress is either a liar or needs a few lessons on how rulers work. We each received what looked like an entire dinner plate filled to the brim with pie, whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream. Although it was tough, we all have to fight to summit our Mount Katahdins ever day, and so we muscled through it. We are not quitters, after all! The pie was amazing, in case you were wondering. After eating my entire meal plus dessert, it was difficult to even look at food but we still had to sort through and divide our haul from Dollar General. I asked the waitress if we could stay at our table and repack our food bags, and she said it was no problem which was very kind. We eventually got everything sorted, jammed the now-hulking food bags unceremoniously into our packs since everything tastes the same whether whole or crushed, retrieved our charging electronics, and paid our bill. As we were finishing up, a soft-spoken man who had been sitting behind me stopped over to the table and said his son had hiked the AT previously, and said he wanted to offer us some Trail Magic. He handed Meadow a $20 bill and wished us luck before leaving. His kindness brought us both to near tears as we finished packing up to leave the diner.

It wasn’t until we left the diner to hike out of Hot Springs that we realized what a mistake we had made by eating so much. We only had another few miles to go but I am not exaggerating when I say that they were probably the most difficult of the entire trail so far. The Pie A La Mode Slog was way worse than the Hot Dog Slog, and Meadow and I agreed that we had smashed through the extreme end of the law of diminishing returns on calorie consumption. We eventually could resume hiking instead of Thru-Waddling along the AT, and made it to our next tentsite amid a few drops of rain. We got the tent set up and waited a bit for the rain to clear before hurrying up to do the nightly chores. The bear bags were more difficult to raise into the air, now weighing many pounds more than they did before. We had to hang each bag on separate ropes because they were so heavy…And no, we did not eat dinner. When we got into the tent the wind started to pick up and it continued to rain lightly. During the night we ended up hearing some kind of animal activity around our tent, including some footsteps that sounded too light to be a bear–maybe a coyote? It walked around our tent and made a bit of a commotion under our hanging food, which was a little scary. But I was able to sleep on and off just like every over night, and we woke to a sunny morning with our food bags hanging intact.

Day 26, Friday April 14: We packed up a damp tent and moved on from the campsite to start a 15.8-mile day with more than 5,000 feet of vertical ascent. We had pretty good weather in the morning, and huffed our way up to the Rich Mountain Fire Tower for yet another amazing panoramic view. We could see Asheville from that high! We finally had cell service so we took an administrative break up in the breezy (i.e. freezing) fire tower to check emails and send some texts. After leaving the fire tower we hiked a few miles to another shelter, where we stopped for a refill on our water. Meadow hit the shelter’s privy and I took our four bottles of water, the filter, and a collection q.bag down the short path to the water source down in the valley. As I looked out, I saw massive black thunderclouds rolling in, and noticed the temperature had dropped and the winds had picked up even more. I hurried up with the water filtration process and limped quickly back up to the shelter. Meadow didn’t need any convincing to wait at the shelter for the storm to pass. A few other folks had the same idea, and we huddled in the shelter with Bobcat, Organizer, and Camel. After about twenty minutes, the rain started and immediately turned into a downpour. The wind threw rain every which way, and the lightning struck all around the valley. The thunder seemed even louder than usual, and we got to experience the sharp cracks and booming rolls that seemed to last for minutes at a time. Eventually the lightning ebbed, and the rain began to fade. Once the birds started singing again I figured it was time to make a break for it, and by the time we packed up and headed out with our rain gear it was barely raining at all. Sure enough, within 15 minutes the sun was shining and we were hiking through sun-heated sauna fog.

Eventually the clouds and rain came back, but the rain was light and intermittent. After putting ina few more miles we came to a well-maintained gravel road crossing with a sign the said “Southern Cookie Lady” with an arrow pointing to the right. We looked over to see in the distance the side of a beautiful log cabin that was giving off hardcore Hansel and Gretel vibes. But I never met a cookie I didn’t like so we followed the sign to a gorgeous log home with a plastic tote on the porch filled with individually-wrapped huge cookies, a place for trash and some filtered water. Trail Magic! The cookies were AMAZING. Just as we were devouring them, a very kind woman came outside to stay hi. She and her husband used to live in Ohio and had found this property almost 10 years ago. She said that they were finally able to retire in 2021 and could move down to Tennessee permanently, and she says they love it. She bakes cookies every single day for Thru-Hikers (God bless her!), and says she only uses the best Amish chocolate chips because Nestle doesn’t hold a candle to them. After a while she said she still tutors some students online, and had to go, but to make sure we drank as much water as we could before filling up our bottles and leaving, but we could stay on the porch as long as wanted to avoid the rain. We thanked her effusively has she disappeared back into her idyllic home, and we packed up and headed back to the trail. After a few more damp miles we finally made it to our shelter, and abode for the night. POTUS and Karaoke, other shelter dwellers that night that slept on either side of Meadow and I, both had serious sleep apnea. The only time the shelter was quiet (i.e. devoid of snoring) was when both POTUS and Karaoke were both silently suffocating to death during an apnea event before once again gasping for air, which gave the snoring a bit of a disturbing undertone.

Day 27, Saturday April 15: We thought the day’s weather was supposed to be beautiful, but we awoke to another foggy morning of rain. Nothing to do but hike on anyway! We passed the biggest snail I’ve ever seen, and traversed several rocky miles before getting up to an exposed ridgetop. The fog was so thick we had no visibility, so we had no idea what we were missing at the time–but at least it wasn’t raining! It didn’t bother me that we had no view, partially because I’ve ready been able to see and enjoy so many vast panoramas, and partially because the foggy trail was still beautiful in its own right. We continued hiking to fog and most for most of the day, but eventually the sun came out as we stopped at a shelter around 2:30pm. We had originally planned on stopping for the night here, but since it was early and we still had energy we decided to keep going! We ended up hiking another 4 miles for a total of 17.5 miles! The place we stopped was a small stream valley, and we ended up cooking dinner immediately because we were starving. The rice and pasta blend “instant sides” plus a tuna packet meals we had were honestly better than we both expected–600 calories for $2 isn’t too shabby! Meadow went down to the stream to fill our water bottles while I hung the bear bags, which were still WAY too heavy to hang on one rope. I decided to try anyway and ended up getting my fingers stuck in the rope; the PCT Hang method hitch is a little tricky to do high above your head! Luckily a hiker we had met the day before had just come into the area and asked if it was okay if he set up his tent there…I said “Sure, but if you don’t want me to stand next to your tent all night can you help me out of this rope?” We had to cut the rope to free my now-purple fingers and our food bags plummeted over 20 feet to the earth, thereby shattering any and all hope of eating pop tarts or crackers in whole pieces ever again. I tied the two ends of the cut rope back together and retrieved the other rope so I could hang our two food bags bags separately as I should have in the first place. Nailed it!

Day 28, Sunday April 16: I awoke to the sound of rain pelting the tent around 6:15am, and I resigned myself to starting the day in the rain. I told myself in week one to assume that rain is the default on the trail anyway, which just makes the sunny days all the more special! We packed up as much as we could without getting out of the tent, and then I ran over to retrieve our food bags so we could eat breakfast in the tent before tearing it down. By the time we got the tent packed and headed up the trail it was barely after 7am, and th rain had already stopped! It was warm enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt all day, but we saw many dark rain clouds float by overhead so we kept our pack covers on our packs and our rainwear readily accessible just in case. We had another day of over 5,000 feet of elevation gain today over more than 15 trail miles covered, so all in all it was a tough day. We also realized we are still carrying at least 3.5 days’ worth of food, which means we were DEFINITELY carrying too much when we left Hot Springs! We climbed and climbed our way up to Big Bald, where we got another panoramic view and final proof that it was definitely raining in an adjacent valley. The wind on top of Big Bald was strong enough to push me around if it caught on my pack, but the temperature was still relatively warm until we got to the shelter when it finally drizzled and fog rolled in. All in all, today was a tough day, but we managed to beat the rain and continued moving forward. And we finished up the week at mile 327on the Trail!

It’s hard to believe that I’ve ready been out here for four weeks…and yet here we are! As they say, the days are long but the time is short. It’s been a whirlwind of a week, and especially the weather has surprised me in how quickly and drastically it can change. Next week our plans involve a hostel stop for a food resupply, and to keep our mileage around the 15 miles per day range while, as always, monitoring our feet, knees, and other necessary bits for wear and tear above the normal expected amount. We will be heading toward Roan Mountain this week, and have many more things to look forward to!

Thanks for stopping by!