May 10 Mile 352
Got up early this morning. When you stay at hostels, they usually have a beat up old truck or van to shuttle hikers to certain spots, like this morning to a diner for breakfast. It was good and cheap. I told Cisco, if I was driving by I would never stop to eat in this place. I would go back for sure. We walked to a Dollar Store and bought enough food to get us to a hostel we plan to go to on Tuesday night- if we can get the 25 miles in. Got back to the hostel and we were out of there like a shot. Hoping all the drunks will hang back to sober up. Most are planning to attend the biggest trail event of the year- trail days- the weekend of May 15 in Damascus, Va. about 120 miles up the trail and right on the trail- it will certainly be a party for this crowd. Supposedly folks from the town go up and down the trail and pick up hikers to bring them to Damascus. We plan to avoid this at all costs and our hiking schedule gets us there several days later. The van driver told us Robert Redford is making the movie of Bill Bryson's book about the AT-"A Walk in the Woods". That will be fun to see-but I am sure it will explode the number of people out here.
Normally when you leave a town you are leaving a gap or low spot- Erwin is no different at 1700 ft if elevation.
Our plan today was to climb to about 4700 feet, so it's quite a rise and can be very strenuous, particularly when you are carrying a full pack with food and water. But today the hike was mercifully different. Theyhad the most wonderful trail coming out of Erwin. And it went for several miles right by this beautiful stream. It was terrific except for this one short section that was very steep. I really slow down at these points and just plod along. As I was doing so, I got too close to a rhodadendrum and the branches of the bush pulled my empty water bottle ( known as a Nalgen) right from the outside pocket of my pack and then flung it down a very steep ravine to the creek below. No way was I going down after that! But, a water bottle is a pretty critical item here. Have to buy a new one at the hostel tomorrow. Luckily, we have another larger water system we carry in our packs.
We hiked about 12 miles today, and it got cooler and cooler- down to about 50 degrees and very cloudy, but the mountains were really pretty all around us as we gained more and more elevation. And then we came to the top of this bald known as the Beauty Spot. It was terrific for the views all around and there was a gravel road for folks to drive up here, which was very odd to see. As we were hiking up and before we crossed a highway, a car dropped off a half dozen hikers ahead of us. We had a camping site we were trying to reach. But because these folks were driven to the site, they got the best sites before us. We are not sure of the equity in that? It's now after 9 pm and the rain has begun to fall. It's supposed to be a rainy week. We'll see how it goes. We are now at Mile 352 and that makes us 75% of the way to Virginia, yay. Virginia is always talked about by thru hikers like it was the promised land- because supposedly all the mountains are little and all the trails go downhill- or something silly like that. As you are struggling through Ga, Tenn, and NC you'll hold on to anything. 6000 ft Roan Mtn to climb in a couple of days and probably in the rain! Yikes!