Week Five – Straight Outta North Carolina

Hey everyone, Victory here! It’s been a big week down on the AT, we’ve hit a few big milestones and I’m excited to share this update with you. Here’s what’s been going on!

Day 29, Monday April 17: The temperature dropped precipitously the evening before, and when we woke up in the shelter it was near freezing. The fog had dissipated into a cold sunrise, but the wind that whipped through the camp site was frigid. We decided to keep our long wool layers on plus our fleece jackets to start the morning hike, for the first time in a while forsaking the shirts and t-shirt that became our typical hiking uniform. We said goodbye to our shelter mates and headed out by 7am in hopes of grabbing a spot at the hostel 16.8 miles away, Uncle Johnny’s Hostel. The morning stayed cold for several hours even after the sun rose high above, and the wind easily cut through our winter layers. We stayed warm enough by doing what we do best at this point: hike. We had expected a “mostly downhill” day as we headed from the mountaintop Big Bald down to the Nolichucky River Valley, bit we were surprised to come across many more ascents than we expected, most of them PUDS–Pointless Ups and Downs. We passed High Rock on the top of a mountain, which is exactly what it was: a very high-up rock. Riveting! As we descended down (and up) the mountains, eventually we came across two larger guys who were packing up their packs. At least they appeared to be two guys; it was difficult to tell at first because they were both wearing an unusual assortment of clothing topped with baggy rain gear that turned them into large blobs, which is indicative of two Thru-Hikers that are very cold and wearing whatever clothes they could dig our of their bags. I hit them with the usual “Good morning! How’s it going?” “Better now!” the first guy beamed, “We just had a snack!” Realizing that I had found a kindred spirit with a shared enthusiasm for Snacks, I responded with “Oh yeah, never a bad time for a snack!” and we kept walking. We passed a section of trail that crossed back and forth over a stream lined with rhododendron and filled with small pools that would have been great to lounge in had the air temperature been 50 degrees warmer. After about two more hours of hiking we stopped for one of our usual water breaks, and the Snack Guy came huffing up behind us with startling speed, and said “I’m being motivated by the promise of town food!” and literally jogged out of sight with his backpack bouncing up the trail after him. After wasting a few brain cells on wondering where his friend was, I decided that he must just like food more than he likes his friend and we kept on walking. Eventually we came to a shelter where we stopped for lunch, and could finally change into short sleeves again. After we were there for a few minutes eating our lunch of a tuna packet with crushed up potato chips, who should appear but Snack Guy (who we had passed without knowing it because he had taken a small detour to get water) and his friend. Snack Guy’s real name, or rather his Trail Name which isn’t quite his “real” name, is High Gear which made sense considering the jogging. His friend’s name was Gadget. We made general conversation about where we came from and what we did before the AT, and also about what we’ve already gotten out of the experience so far. Although we only talked to these folks for a few minutes, they seemed like really good people and it was great to chat with them! But eventually we had to move on, especially since High Gear and Gadget were also headed to the same hostel so we had to beat them there in case space was limited (just kidding). The afternoon hike was at least a little warmer and at least a little more dowhill than uphill, and eventually we got close enough back down to sea level to nab a view of the Nolichucky River valley. We actually rolled up to Uncle Johnny’s after nearly 17 miles just after 2pm! When we arrived we found the front door locked so there was no access to the store to resupply, and a sign on the door said that there was a plumbing problem and the showers and restrooms were out of order–not great! But the Thru-Hiker is resilient and flexible, so we found a small hotel 1.1 miles up the road. It was a little pricier, but with actual working indoor plumbing, a Mexican restaurant next door, and an attached gas station that looked nicer than most Dollar Generals for a resupply option, what more could you ask for? So we walked the 1.1 miles to the hotel, got showers, checked in with friends and family, and headed over to the Mexican place for an enormous burrito and chimichanga–my personal favorite. Since we had purchased (and carried…) way too much food at our last resupply point in Hot Springs, we only needed to add one day of food to our bags to make it another 4 days to the next supply point on the trail. So we picked over the gas station and actually found some decent protein bars and dried fruit mixes, plus the usual delicious garbage like pop tarts and snack crackers. I also threw in a box of Imodium just in case, since norovirus is going around the Thru-Hiker community and I had forgotten to pack some of it in our medkit. After finishing everything on our to-do list, we turned in for the night. After sleeping in a sleeping bag for a month, having four pillows all to myself seemed more ridiculous than ever.

Day 30, Tuesday April 18: I had set an alarm for 6am so that we could pack up all of our stuff and hit up the continental breakfast before making the mile trek back to the trail junction where we had left off the day before. It was a frigid morning in the 40s, but I opted to wear shorts anyway because the sun would warm things up quickly and we were headed right for a climb once we hit the trail. The climb certainly was long, bit it wasn’t quite as steep as some of our other ascents over the last few days and we made really good time. After about 8 miles we stopped for second breakfast and realized it was only 11am–Meadow thought we had only gone “maybe three” miles, by this point, so that was a nice surprise for her! After a few more hours we heaved ourselves up over the Beauty Spot, which was a huge open area on top of a smaller mountain. It was extremely windy since it was so exposed, but it certainly was a beautiful spot. We elected to eat lunch a little past it to get out of the wind so we didn’t freeze to death–both of us hated the thought of over-wearing our fleece jackets since they still smelled amazing from the laundry, so we just walked out of the wind instead.

After leaving our warm lunch spot, we hiked down a few hundred feet and filled up on water before starting to ascend Mount Unaka. The climb was pretty steep in the beginning, but eventually leveled out just a little bit to make the climb more manageable. After we got almost to the top, we came across a middle-aged couple with hand-carved and stained walking sticks, and several brightly-colored mesh foraging bags each, all empty. They asked if we had seen any morel mushrooms around, and I said no, that I haven’t seen any mushrooms around, even on the trees, and I had been looking. They asked us how long we had been on the trail, and after learning that we are Thru-Hikers they started asking all the usual questions about how we get clean water, where we get our food, etc. The man asked if we had met any “creepo’s” on the trail and whether we were worried about safety. His wife hit him from behind with her walking stick, laughing, and said those people only exist in movies, prompting him to brandish his own walking stick at her with a twinkle in his eye. He asked us a few more Trail questions before his wife cut him off, scolding him for pestering us. As we said our goodbyes he mentioned that the stand of pine trees at the Unaka summit was beautiful, thick and dark, and we should look forward to it: “That’s where the trolls live!” After another half hour or so of walking, we arrived at the stand of tall, thin pine trees with green moss climbing up their bases. I didn’t see any trolls, but the trees themselves were captivating enough. We took a short break sitting on the soft, damp moss while trying to figure out if we wanted to camp there or push another three miles to the shelter, and listening to the wind push the tops of the trees around making them sway. We decided to press on since we both felt up to it and the forest seemed pretty cold with the wind and dampness. It was a relatively easy few miles of mostly downhill, and we rolled into the shelter to find nobody else there which was a first. We ate dinner immediately (both starving!) including polishing off my sleeve of Victory Oreos, and hung our bear bag since there were no cables available. Eventually a young woman named Podcast also showed up at the shelter, and we visited for a short while before Sleeping Bag O’Clock rolled around early at 7pm. I saw three mice run back and forth along the rafters in the shelter, which was a first for me but apparently pretty common in AT shelters. We had hung our food properly and our packs were also hanging from hooks in the shelter, so we didn’t have any issues.

Day 31, Wednesday April 19: Since we were planning on doing a “shorter” distance of only 12 miles, we had planned to sleep in as late as we wanted. We ended up waking up by 7am anyway and figured we would start the day. We ended up having a relatively easy hiking day through forested and lush valleys with minimal sharp ascents or descents, and we made it 11 miles by just before 2pm…so we decided to go a bit further for a total distance of 15.2 miles in part to begin the ascent of Roan Mountain so we didn’t have to do it all the next morning. We stopped for a break midday and had what I now call a “Thru-Hiker’s Lollipop”, which is literally just the biggest scoop of peanut butter you can gather on a titanium spork. My feet honestly felt the best they’ve felt at the end of a hiking day in several weeks, bit there was still plenty of knee pain to go around. We found a tent spot in the gorgeous Ash Gap, which had a carpet of grass and wildflowers amidst tall thin trees which I can only assume were ash. Finding a branch to hang the bear bag was fairly easy here, but we definitely heard some animal activity prowling around camp during the night. I apparently (mercifully) slept through the most exciting parts, but by Meadow’s account someone was clapping in an effort to shoo some large animal away from their own hanging food.

Day 32, Thursday April 20: We awoke to another glorious rainbow sunrise, and packed up our stuff as usual. Despite the ruckus the night before, our unadulterated food bags hung right where we left them. We had a quick breakfast of a Lenny and Larry’s fibrous and protein-packed chocolate chip cookie, and then set about the task of finishing the climb up Roan Mountain.

We ended up making it to the top and starting back down the other side almost without noticing due to being deep in conversation, as we missed the turnoff point for the shelter that was near the top. The descent down the other side was littered with small ad medium rocks, all loose and ripe for the ankle-twisting. We called that section of trail The Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Feet, and passed through it unscathed anyway.

After coming out into the open partway down the mountain, we saw the ruins of the old Cloudlands Hotel, built in the 1800s and long since abandoned. After a surprisingly gentle descent that matched the surprisingly easy ascent, eventually we reached the foothills and emerged from the forest into Carver Gap of the Pisgah-Cherokee National Forests. The sun was shining brightly as a crew of trail maintenance workers was doing their daily safety talk. As we scurried across the road and began to climb the too-tall steps on the other side, I overheard the crew leader say “See those purple tags on their backpacks? They started at Springer in Georgia and are planning on going all the way.” Damn right, I thought. We climbed up a huge, grassy hill until we got to signs on either side that pointed out ridgetops on both sides of the hill–one facing North Carolina and the other, Tennessee. We saw a few mountains we had already climbed (lookee lookee, it’s Big Bald! Wow, it looks so small from here…) and a few that we had yet to summit. As we were ogling the horizons, the trail crew caught up to us and started asking us questions. I complimented their handiwork as the trails in that area were gorgeous, and we thanked them for their time to keep the national forest and trails beautiful. One guy said that their section was the best in the whole trail, and of course we agreed! The only section worth hiking, really. We continued up the rocky and dusty hill until the trail turned left back into some sparse tree cover. We filtered some water and continued on, realizing that we needed to stop for Second Breakfast. It was already almost 11am, way past second breakfast time! As we looked for a good place to stop, we passed another hiker, a tall, thin woman maybe in her mid- to late twenties. After we said hi and passed her, she asked us if we wanted any biscuits. “I Thru-Hiked the AT in 2017 and do sections every year now…I picked up some iced blueberry biscuits and some sausage biscuits from Bo Jangles this morning for some on-Trail Magic if you want any!” I’m not proud of how quickly I inhaled the iced blueberry biscuit, but it was delicious!! We also each took a sausage biscuit and stuffed them in my pack for when we found our break spot. Mother Nature, the amazing biscuit-bringer, said that she loved the AT and spent about one week a year hiking various sections, and she loved to see how they changed during different times of the year. We chatted for a bit and then headed back down the trail. We stopped shortly thereafter since the sausage biscuits were burning a proverbial hole in my pack, and plopped down on a log to eat them. Another gentleman (Patriarch) with a neatly-trimmed white beard was already there, staring into the woods. He asked us if we could see the red bird in the bushes, and of we knew what kind it was. I said it was a scarlet tanager. “Right!” he said. “They’re my favorite bird and I was waiting for the day when I would see one out here.” As we spoke the tanager just watched us, surprisingly comfortable that three people were sitting in a nearby clearing talking loudly and watching it. Patriarch said he was working on making a video for his friend when he saw the bird; he was answering a question on how he had already changed during his time on the beginning of the AT. His response was a good one: “Before I started, I thought of the AT as something I wanted to conquer or defeat. Now, I just want to be a part of it.” He said that he came across a young couple getting married in the National Forest just a few hours earlier, and that it became this special experience that he could observe just because he was there. And seeing the scarlet tanager so closely during what was supposed to be a short break, that too became special for him. Eventually the tanager flew off, and so did Patriarch, and we followed after eating our second breakfast and other salty snacks. We then climbed the Little Hump and Hump Mountains, which were more challenging than we expected. The winds were very strong on both due to them being so exposed, and the sun was very hot despite the wind. On Little Hump I saw a yellow butterfly attempt to cross the open grassy plain, but it became caught in the maelstrom and was whisked away at an alarming speed for a butterfly, zipping away and getting sucked out of view…we joked that the poor insect was trying to set a record for Fastest Known Time for completing the Appalachian Trail in just a few hours, and it was probably back at Springer Mountain by now. The views on top of both Hump mountains were more than worth the sweat and effort to climb them. After a few more miles of rocky descent on the back of our last mountain for the day, we set up our tent at a little open area called the Doll Flats at mile 393 and called it a day. Since we had planned to resupply the next day, we carefully determined what food we needed the next day to get us to the road crossing, and then we ate everything else in our food bags.

Day 33, Friday April 21: I awoke to the increasing light of dawn and the sound of birdsong, signaling the beginning of another clear day. There is something so abnormal, and yet so normal, about waking up to the soft calls of the forest. We packed up camp as per usual, and hiked a few easy miles through a now-lush and green forest. The fact that I only had about a half day’s worth of food in my pack made my pack feel light as a feather, despite the fact that it still weighed more than 15 pounds. Just before 9am we came to a large road crossing, and I walked over to the guardrail to read a sticker on it, something about a free “Trail Magic Breakfast” a half mile up the road. As we started looking both ways for traffic. A blue sedan hurled around the corner and, apparently seeing us, flicked on a turn signal and pulled over to lower his window. He said “I’m with the Station at 19-E, would you guys like a free hot breakfast?” After a fifteen-second conversation we determined he was the owner of The Station hostel and yes, they had a resupply store. We loaded all of our belongings into his trunk, but just before closing it I grabbed my phone out of my backpack just in case we were getting ourselves into something other than a free breakfast. Fifteen minutes later we were seated at the bar of a cozy hostel staring down plates of eggs, a pancake that we split, biscuits and gravy, and “crack potatoes” which I could tell were cooked in both bacon fat and butter. Dave, our chauffer and the owner of the hostel, told us the story of how he worked with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to get the town of Roan Mountain listed as a true Trail Town, and how he ended up buying the hostel. They have a donation website that pulls in so much money that they offer free breakfasts to any Thru-Hiker who wants one, and let me tell you they definitely deliver! They also host a weekly karaoke night and have a regular small restaurant, which pulls im enough revenue to stay open year-round (i.e. non-hiker season). We charged our phones and drank chilled blue Gatorade out of pilsner glasses, and eventually raided their store for the three days of food we needed to get to our next stop. I ended up buying a two-pound bag of raisins before realizing that would add two pounds of weight to my pack. After we paid for our dried goods and chatted with Dave for a bit longer, he left to drive a shuttle of other hikers back to he trail. We hung out a few minutes longer to let our phones soak up a bit more charge, and then left a note for Dave saying thank you for the ride and for breakfast. I couldn’t believe our timing with getting to the highway just as the hostel owner was driving by; our trip to the Station at 19-E was the most serendipitous Trail Magic we had experienced so far, and having breakfast with the owner felt more special than usual.

We walked along highway 19-E for a sunny half mile back to the Trail, and reentered the forest. The trail was hilly and open in many places, and buttercups and yellow asters dotted the grassy slopes. I saw a copperhead on the trail in front of me, and barely had the time to utter a profanity in shock before it had already disappeared into the grass and was gone. As we passed through a rather nondescript section of forest, I noticed a few piles of forest debris by the trail. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the piles of stones, pinecones, and sticks actually demarcated AT Mile 400…wait, we just walked 400 miles?!?

After a few more sunny miles we came to the largest stream we had seen yet, and changed into our camp shoes to do some wading. The water was frigid and I could only stay in for about a minute, with the intent of icing my Achilles tendons. After stumbling back out we chatted with our new friend Podcast while our feet dried so we could put our disastrous socks and shoes back on. We talked about the fact that we just finished the last quarter-mile stretch of the trail in North Carolina, which was very exciting–2 states down, only 12 to go!

We hiked up and down a few ridges, in and out of the shade of pine trees. We had wraps with peanut butter and raisins to start chipping away at my two-pound bag of raisins, which instantly became one of my favorite trail snacks. We took a very short side trail to see Jones Falls, a gorgeous waterfalls framed by trees with new leaves and a few dead trees at the base. We met a trio of older folks, two men and a woman, enjoying their snacks at the base of the Falls. We chatted for a bit about the AT before they were ready to move on. As they stood up, they all collected their walking sticks, and I saw the woman was using a cane instead of a trekking pole. She had shoulder-length straight gray hair flecked with white, and looked like she could have been a Calvin Klein model with her navy blue leggings, sunglasses, and a white sweater tied around her shoulders. She took slow but steady steps down the knotted tree roots at the base of the falls, then looked at us and said: “I’m 76 years old, I’ve had back surgery, but I refuse to give in!” And they wished us well on our Thru-Hike and walked down the trail.

We enjoyed the falls for a bit longer before heading on ourselves, and hiked on for a few more sunny miles. We ended up settling down for the evening in a small stream valley, knowing that we could expect some rain during the night. As we set up camp, the breeze running through the valley was enough to shake the trees to the point that the trunks were creaking. We had a small creak to the south of our tent, a big creak to the north, and a large creaking trunk that sounded like a snort to our east. I used my extensive lumberjacking experience to analyze the trees’ projected fall directions, making sure that if the trees would fall, they would fall in a different direction…like on somebody else’s tent. The stream we slept next to wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out the sound of the creaking trunks throughout the night, and as I laid in the tent I wondered whether one of the trees would fall on us.

Day 34, Saturday April 22: The rain started at about 5am, and the thunder and lightning were marvelous from inside the tent where we stayed reasonably dry. The rain was heavy and steady until about 7am, when we decided we may as well get going. By the time we packed up our sleeping pads and bags and were donning our rain coats and pants, the rain had slowed and nearly stopped–we once again escaped having to pack up the tent in the rain! We retrieved our food bags and packed up, and by the time we got moving on the trail the rain had resumed. We hiked all morning in the rain and a thick fog which made it difficult to tell how much time had passed. We stopped by a shelter to heat up Third Breakfast and warm up for a few minutes before heading back out into the rain. My body temperature dropped quickly after we stopped moving, but after putting additional layers on and moving on again I warmed up again quickly. We hiked a serpentine path through woodlands and wetlands, passed several small waterfalls between hedges of rhododendron, and after several more hours we came to the bottom of a stream valley. The sun finally came out, dissolving the clouds almost in an instant. We crossed a road into the Pond Mountain Wilderness Area, passing by several rhododendrons actually in bloom which was an exciting thing to see. We hiked down large stone steps to the Laurel Falls, another overwhelming waterfall that was percussively loud and speckling us with spray even though we were hundreds of feet away. The rocky path wound back up to the top of the valley where we stayed in a small, cozy stone shelter with questionable bathroom and bear-bagging options. We hung our bear bag over a steep cliff, which was difficult to do, but one of the only times so far that I could look at our food bags as we tucked them in for the night and say with certainty, “Yep, ain’t no bear that can get THEM morsels tonight, nosiree!” As we finished up our day a young woman named Pinto joined us at the shelter. She was exuberant and talkative, and an absolute riot. She had just escaped from the hostel “vortex”, which basically is the pull or draw of hostels along the trail due to their promise of comfort and social environment. As Pinto told us about how much she loved the Roan Mountain area (“Would it be weird to name my first kid Roan?”), and her crush on the last hostel owner, it was clear to see how much the Appalachian Trail has already left its impression on her. She told us she had just gotten out of the U.S. Coast Guard and she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do after she finished the trail, but she knew she needed to focus on hiking instead of “giving out roses” hanging out at hostels if she wanted to finish the AT at all. As we spent the evening talking and laughing, it was beautiful to see how the AT brings totally different people together and gives them one thing in common to tie us all together: the hike. From the shelter I had a full view of the setting sun as it dipped low along the ridges on the opposite side of the valley, rimming a honeysuckle bush in gold before finally going to sleep below the horizon.

Day 35, Sunday April 23: Despite putting my Sawyer water filter in my sleeping bag to protect it from freezing overnight, the temperature stayed warmer than expected and we woke to a cool-but-not-freezing morning. We began the day’s hike by heading back down into the Laurel Fork River valley, before climbing right back out again. We climbed a few thousand feel of elevation before enjoying about 200 yards of flat terrain, the small but welcome reward for conquering the “Pond Flats” mountain ascent. We then descended the other side of Pond Mountain, and after a 7-mile morning we hit a road crossing where we exited the Appalachian Trail for a quarter-mile walk to Boots Off Hostel and Campground. The hostel’s resupply shop was relatively well-stocked, and we were able to get what we needed for three days for about $30. After repacking our food bags, throwing our trash away from the past few days, and packing up our packs, we decided to eat lunch at the hostel. We raided their freezer and purchased a frozen pizza, Klondike bars, steak and cheese hot pockets, and some fresh fruit to prove that we’re not actually eating like 12-year old on purpose. After eating our fill and letting our phones charge on the massive power strip, we washed our dishes and the tables before heading out. Pinto had arrived at the hostel after us; as Meadow and I walked back down the driveway to head back to the AT, I had to smile as I heard her telling a new audience about how amazing the Roan Mountain area is. After hitting the trail again we noticed that the temperature had dropped while we were at the hostel. The trail snaked over to Watauga Lake where we snuck a view of the calm and cloudy lake before climbing into the Iron Mountains.

As we climbed into the mountains the sun slowly came out and the temperature rose just slightly to be comfortably chilly. We hiked another 9 miles after the hostel and eventually ended up at another shelter, ending our week at AT Mile 437.7 with a view of Watauga Lake far below us. The temperature is supposed to continue to drop into the low 30s tonight, and there is a Freeze Warning in effect until Tuesday. After eating our hot dinners and hanging our bear bags, we finished the rest of our chores and got into our sleeping bags to stay warm while we chatted with Podcast and our other shelter mates.

Thanks for stopping by!