This morning wasn’t as cold. We hiked about 3 miles up to Big Stamp, where there were several bird blinds, nets, and people doing bird catching and releasing for research purposes. We walked across an open field then up to Big Bald at 5500ft – and were rewarded with beautiful 360 degree views! The sun was illuminating the fog in the valley to the east in North Carolina. It’s as close to snow as I’m going to get,  I guess. We spent a bit of time at the top enjoying the sun and views. There was a ring of rose petals on the ground around a makeshift tent site that looked only a couple days old – I guess someone got romaric-ed up there!

Bye Brown

We spent the next 7 miles lastly descending down to Sam’s Gap at 3300ft, where Ryley and I stopped to wait for our ride into Asheville, TN. We high five Brown and told him we’d be on his tail soon!

Lane (trail name Tiki – a hiker Ryley met on the PCT) picked us up at noon, drove us the 40 min or so into Asheville, and came and had lunch with us at a restaurant we asked him to suggest. Asheville has been lauded as the “Portland of the eastern US” – it has 18 breweries, coffee shops with good coffee, and restaurants that locally source their food. Kind of felt like Victoria, too 🙂

I had a salad for lunch! Hurray! Topped with fried chicken, don’t worry. Ryley had a burger and we both had a local beer. Lane then went back to work so Ryley and I went to have a coffee at Malaprop’s bookstore them wandered around the town a bit. I believe we both voted it best coffee on the trail so far! Yum. Town was fairly small and easy to walk around, and jam a good vibe. Pretty hippy for southeast US, and lots of people watching to be done. We made our way to Vortex Doughnuts around 3pm where doughnuts were 2 for 1. We ordered 6 and turned down the “to go” box, and got another coffee to share. They were really good! We wrote down the kinds below. We Remer up with Lane, grabbed an “after work” beer at Green Man Brewing, then went back to his and his  girlfriend (Sarah)’s house to do a load of laundry and shower (hurray).

Lane and Sarah finished showing off their town by taking us to dine at the local hot spot – the roving Thai Truck which parks at a nearby gas station on Thursday nights, and which has a “Brew Pump” beer window serving local beers as well as a seating area to drink them and eat Thai. Awesome. They had us home by 9. We booked some plane tickets (duh-duh-duh) and hit the hay.

DBB
Highland Clawhammer Oktoberfest (Asheville, TN)
Green man Porter (Asheville, TN)
Dark horse stout (Marshall, MI)
Green Man ESB
Mystery Brewing Papa Boise Summer Stout (Hillsborough, NC)

Vortex doughnuts:
Salted caramel
Espresso glazed
Chocolate coconut
Vanilla cake
Apple fritter
Chocolate caramel

We were up early enough to watch the last of the sunrise, by hurrying out of bed. Then a long descent into Erwin. Almost right away as we went down, we met Brother Tom, setting up trail magic, so we hung out with him for 20 minutes, eating home baked brownies and zucchini bread, along with fruit and sweet tea. After that we passed a guy, who turned out to be a coworker of Brown’s from REI. He was a very energetic guy and entertained us for a bit. Finally, right at the edge of town we met two lovely ladies selling deep fried apple pies as a fundraiser for their church. We ate a bunch.

Next stop, resupply courtesy of Uncle Johnny’s Hostel. All you can eat pizza was also on the menu. We still managed to blow through town in 2.5 hours, then climbing up the mountains right away. We were all groaning about our poor life choices, but we made it. We did screw up and skip all the nice water, then ended up having to hike an extra mile and very tediously dribble water into our bottles. Finally in camp just before dark, Brown decided he was too tired and full to have dinner, so he was straight to bed.

Tomorrow we are headed to Ashville to meet up with Tiki, a hiking friend of mine from the PCT.

Another fleece and mittens morning! Although it wasn’t quite as chilly as yesterday. We were hiking by 7:30 – Brown was too cold to wait for us and rocketed onto the trail to warm up. Today was much ridge walking in the forest. Tennessee knows how to do switchbacks at least (like Virginia, not like Maine and new Hampshire where everything was straight up and straight down!). We met quite a few section hikers on the trail today. Usual stops for water and lunch. In the afternoon, we hiked ip and over a fairly pointless mountain – 1200ft climb and no view, but it did have “dense spruce forest” according  to our guide. It did, too – it smelled like Christmas and it was beautiful and quiet and peaceful up there.

We descended down from that and stopped around 6 at “beauty spot gap” – maybe our first night camping out of the trees on the whole trail. We had dinner in the evening sunshine then watched the sun go down over the Tennessee hills in the distance – it was mesmerizing. We took pictures but they don’t quite to do it justice. There is a sliver of moon out and we can even see some town lights twinkling in the distance.

Another cold morning, we both started out with mitts and fleeces. Brown froze last night in his 60F sleeping bag, and no warm clothes at all. We had some very dewy miles up and over a ridge, then down to a highway, access to Roan Mountain. We hitched in a sunny spot, still cold, and got a ride within 5 minutes from a lady and her cat. The cute cat had been attacked by dogs and was on its way to the vet. We got dropped off at Happy Cafe, ate breakfast, and Brown sent off for his warm gear. After breakfast Brown chatted with the owner, who offered us a ride back to the trail in 20 minutes. We quickly assessed our resupply options and managed to get 2 days of food out of the gas station next door. The nearest “real” grocery store was creepily empty, many shelves dusty and the old woman running it just stared at me the whole time I was looking around.

Atop Hump Mountain

Anyways, we got a ride back and were hiking up into the Roan Highlands by 11:30. We got up 2500 feet, onto our first bald mountain in a long time. Sunny and warm finally, we stopped and I spread out all my gear to dry. We made some phone calls and just soaked up some sun. After that we hiked on, following a mostly bald ridgeline up and down. The view continued to be amazing, and as the sun started getting lower it just got better. Right before the last climb, we hit a busy tourist area, so the trail got nicely graded and was wide and gravelly. We passed through some fragrant fir forest and then climbed up to the shelter near the top of Roan Mountain, at 6200 feet. It will likely be a colder night!

Mk: this was such a nice day! Between Hump Mt, Little Hump Mt, and at least 3 “balds” we were up out of the trees and in the sunshine for hours – that hasn’t happened for a long time! The views were out over the hills of Tennessee to the west and North Carolina to the east. The only thing we missed was the sunset as the shelter and tenting at Roan Mt was in the trees.

September 13 – Happy birthday, Mum!

No wasps attacked us in the night, thankfully! I know Brown stomped them all but they were huge and we had to go back to silence most of them post-stomping since they were still moving…

Despite 3 people in the shelter saying they usually get up at 6,when my alarm went off at 6:30 everyone was still sleeping. It was also pretty dark out, so I went back to sleep, too. It’s the weekend, right?! A bit of a late start, we were hiking by 8.

The first thing we did was drop down from the shelter back down to Laurel Creek and on to some very nice waterfalls before climbing back up, up onto yet another ridge and into the clouds. It was cold up there! We stopped mid-morning for me to put on my fleece and mitts and for Ryley to put on his mitts, too. We continued along undulating ridgeline, in and out of rhododendrons, and over many streams. We stopped for lunch in a forest service road – just plopped down right in the middle of it and spread out our food to eat, and our tent to try to catch a rare sunray to help it dry. About 10 minutes later we hear a truck coming – c’mon! He was parking in the pullout to go for a walk, though, not driving through. After he parked he rolled forward to pull off the road farther – right over the corner of our tent, though.

The afternoon was similar going – we even found some mud! And it remained cool. We grabbed water at Jones Falls then set up camp a mile later. Once we’d set up our tent we realized that the second zipper on our only door has blown – the puller won’t lock the teeth. Ryley’s trying to fix it now but so far no dice. Good thing there haven’t been that many bugs lately… I’m kind of surprised the second zipper made it this far, since the first one broke in the first week. We also hope it wasn’t getting partially run over by a truck that busted the zipper…but I’m sure it didn’t help.

22 miles hiked and in bed by 7:15! Ryley is trying to fix the zipper… Anyone have tips for us?

It rained a bit in the night, and the low clouds made it so dark that we slept in a bit. When we did finally emerge, it immediately started pouring, so we hit the trail quickly. We followed a ridge for a few hours in the rain, getting lots of extra water on us from the overgrown brush, plus some prickles for good measure.  We stopped for an early lunch at a shelter to get out of the rain.

We continued along the ridge, although we missed some water sources, so we ended up going 20 miles before we hit water. We crossed a dam and contoured around the lake until we got to a little park. It had a covered picnic table and warm bathrooms, so we hung out there for a second lunch. Other people were having a birthday party and offered us a round of Cokes (gladly accepted, of course).

We ended the day by climbing over a mountain covered in switchbacks, in more rain. Finally it started to clear a bit as we rolled into the shelter. We met a guy named Better Than Expected, a flip flopper (meaning he started north from the middle of the trail, finished in Maine then came back to his starting point and is now heading south to Georgia).  While we were talking, a wasps nest fell out of the roof of the shelter, scattering sleepy wasps all over the ground. Brown rescued us by stomping on all of them before they got angry. Still was pretty scary though.

Another long day, 27 miles, and my feet got rubbed raw by my wet socks and shoes, just like back in Maine. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

We had a much better sleep last night and were happy to be inside – it was pouring out again. We had another awesome breakfast and coffee at MoJoe’s then packed up. We were expecting a package yesterday but found out today it accidentally got shipped to Duncannon, PA instead of Damascus, VA – not sure how that happened but I guess we’ll get it in another 120 miles now. Good thing we can do without it for a bit!

We hit the trail at 10! Not very early… Hiked up out of Damascus then had a rolling ridge line for most of the day. At one point I was walking along lost in thought and jumped out of my skin when the turtle I almost stepped on pulled it’s head into its shell. We stopped around 1 for lunch, met a few section and day hikers along the trail, and were happy the rainstorms seem to have subsided. More ridgeline in the forest in the afternoon although we did pop out into some cow fields and also 1/2 mile of wheelchair grade trail – so it was pretty easy. Ryley and I were talking about ultimate and training…kind of funny since I’m not sure either of us is capable of running right now 🙂
21.5 miles today.

Blair asked what pooh sticks are – so we made a video to explain.
https://youtu.be/lall5DfAlhY

For the record, Brown won this round 2-1. I highly recommend you give it a try next time you have a chance! 🙂

Current Pooh Sticks standings
Bearcat 2
Monk 1
Brown 3