Leaving Hiawassee I was hoping to get the 9am shuttle back to the trail, between me running late and the shuttle being completely full I was on the 11am shuttle. While not the start for the day I had been hoping for, it turned out to be awesome. I had a bit more time to pack things into my bag in an orderly way and when I got off the shuttle some trail angels were providing trail magic. (Trail angels are people that help out hikers, with rides, information or most commonly trail magic. Trail magic is basically anything given to hikers for free. This is usually food or alcohol but theoretically can be just about anything.) Anyway, they had a grill going and some homemade pound cake, it made for an amazing start to the day. I pulled a 12ish mile day and slept at the muskrat creek shelter that night.
During those twelve miles I finished my first state!! So long Georgia, it was a nice 80ish miles but I'm glad I'm done with you. (photo below) As you can see I had some chafing that day, hence the shirt tied around my thigh. It was a nice milestone to be done with a state but at the same time it wasn't as monumental as I had thought it might be.
The first mountain in NC was a complete killer though. I don't know its actual name but I have dubbed it "asshole mountain." It seems appropriate to me. The next day, I made it another 12+ miles to some shelter that started with the letter c. (I'm in bed and the book is in my bag.) It was a rather nice day, my legs felt good and the chafing was a lot less since I hiked in only my boxers. The only downside of the day was it started bucketing down about a mile before I hit the shelter. If it had held off a little more I could have made it in dry. It wasn't overly bad though, I wasn't wearing any clothes really so not much got wet!
Today was the day the group broke apart. Emily (now Peach) and Bunny didn't make it as far as we did and the Incredibles and Button went to the road and got a ride into Franklin. They are planning on zeroing (no mile day) there tomorrow for a bit of a rest. Left with me is Ultraviolet and Travis (now Nitrous Oxide) and we seem to be doing about the same distance. We made it another 12+ miles to Rock gap shelter (I think, the shelters are starting to blend together) and plan on traveling together until Fontana Dam at least.
Another milestone is the fact that I hit 100 miles hiked today! It was at the top of some mountain with a fire tower (photo below). It is a bit of a misleading milestone though since the mileage on the trail changes on an almost yearly basis. For example, this year the measurements have the trail 3.5 miles longer than last year. At mile 102 we saw a rock that had 100 miles written on it. It is a good thing we had been told to look for it because it was quite small. (photo below)
Lastly today I am going to slightly vent about trail design on this part of the trail. Why don't people care about peaks of mountains down here?!? Almost without fail the trail will go almost entirely up a mountain and then 30-60 feet of elevation from the summit just kind of skirt around the top and start going down. While I haven't done a ton of the AT in Maine I have done a decent amount and it doesn't seem that way there. Also, there is never a sign where there are peaks. In Maine basically every peak has a sign either the name and the elevation. Not so down here, even blood mountain (the highest point the AT hits in Georgia) didn't have a sign at the peak. I just don't get it. It might be because there aren't great views on a lot of the peaks but still, Reddington in Maine was labeled and that mountain sucks.
Really lastly, if you want to see incredibly happy people dish out some trail magic. Leave some baked goods at AT crossings when the time of year coincides with thru-hikers, it is such a morale boost you wouldn't believe it.
Holy sunburns batman! Or is that just a backpack tan startin up?
ReplyDeleteIs that you, Steve?
DeleteIt seems like "Naked Ninja" has turned out to be a particularly apt moniker!
ReplyDeleteAh, chafing; I was wondering if that might become a problem. Let me know if you want my next shipment to include some sports slick and/or some Gold Bond medicated powder. :-)
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention the lack of signage at the peaks and the trails just missing the tops of mountains, I remember that from when I hiked in North Carolina all those years ago. You'll have to convince some of those AT clubs to do some more re-routing.
Have you been hiking through as many thunderstorms as the weather forecast suggests?
Whenever I've been on the AT in Maine and NH the trail usually hits the mountain peaks, and if it doesn't another minor trail connected to the AT does. Chalk it up to cultural differences, perhaps?
ReplyDelete