Sam's Gap to Big Butt, Southbound

March 20, 2013
Sam’s Gap to Big Butt – Southbound
13.9 miles, 9.5 hours

Fred from Hemlock Hollow shuttled us to Sam’s Gap where we will begin our hike heading south back to Log Cabin Drive.  It will take us two days to travel this section since it is 27.2 miles through it.  We plan to set up camp about half way in. Not long after starting the day, we met a couple about our age from Montana, and their two dogs.  She is a retired school teacher like us.  They started their thru hike on February 28.   She told me her birthday is tomorrow, I told her mine is the day after.  We exchanged blog information, hers is called wegotraveling.blogspot.com

We had some ice on the trail today.  It is still cold, but not as windy so, therefore, overall more comfortable weather.  When you are walking up mountains you tend to warm up pretty well, even if the temperature is cold.

 We passed the twins again and then Jugz.  They appear to be about the same age, but have been missing each other all along the trail.  It looks like Jugz is about to catch up with them;  I hope she finds someone to hike with soon. 

We passed two thru-hikers who had also stayed at Hemlock Hollow along with us last night (Rash and Collin).  They started at Log Cabin Gap where the hostel is and were slack-packing to Devil Fork Gap - I wish we could do that, but we are not yet up to the 19 miles a day mark, so we will have to spend the night in the forest. I hope they make it all the way to Maine - nice guys.

The weather forecast before we left this morning called for snow flurries tonight.  Uh – it became more than snow flurries before the night was over.  We pitched our tent right off the trail somewhere before the summit of Big Butt Mountain.  Not long after we retired for the night, I was just dozing off when I heard a bunch of howling in the distance.  “What’s that?” I asked.  Wait-up said coyotes.  Then I heard something softly hitting the tent.  “Is that snow flurries?” I asked.  We peaked outside and yes, it was snow flurries.  It became harder and harder and every once in awhile the wind would blow furiously.  Before long  we saw that snow was being blown up under our rain fly and we had to hit the side of the tent to knock it off throughout the night.  Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, we both got cold and had to put on more clothes.  Our sleeping bags are rated at zero degrees, but they didn’t keep us warm.  We found out later that the temperature on the mountain got into the single digits. 

A view from the trail.

Along the trail in this section a bob wire fence separates the
states of TN and NC.  You can see it on the right.

Waterfall just before Rector Laurel Road.