Appalachian Trail Section hiking: Sam's Gap to Spivey Gap Campsite, northbound

May 16, 2013
13.4
8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

We’ve been to Sam’s Gap before. In March when we started at I40 north of the Smokies, we intended to hike all the way to Erwin, but stopped at Sam’s Gap because of the weather and because of sickness of relatives at home. At that time, we came to Sam’s Gap and went south to Log Cabin Road after camping on Big Butt in the snow. This time, we will be hiking north to Erwin.

Sams' Gap

Entering the trail at Sam's Gap going north.

We had a young shuttle driver from Uncle Johnny’s take us to Sam’s Gap. We started up the hill from the gap at 8:30, elevation 3850. It was up most of the way to Big Bald, elevation 5516. We were, of course, tired when we got to the top of the bald and sat down to rest. In a few minutes, here came a family – mom, dad, and three kids running around and a baby in a backpack on dad’s back. They looked like they had all the energy in the world after coming up to the bald, and it wasn’t their first time up there. They were on vacation and had hiked up to the bald the day before as well, but this time they said they had found a road that had put them pretty close to the top. They took our picture with the sunglassed pole before we moved on down the other side of the bald.

We went downhill for 1.5 miles, then started going back up to Little Bald. When we started descending again we thought it was for the last time before reaching Spivey Gap, but NO! When we saw The Trail to High Rocks we knew we had 2 more miles to go before the gap, so we stopped at a campsite for the night. Do you think we took the trail to the high rocks? NOT!