Beauty Spot to Erwin, Southbound

May 19, 2013
10.6 miles
7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Raining again.  We stuffed our wet stuff into our backpacks and left the campsite by 7:00 a.m.  It was very foggy as we crossed over another knob that could very easily have been Beauty Spot.  We never were sure exactly where Beauty Spot was, several places in this area could have been labeled that. 

We met a young man on the trail who was visibly upset and was crying about something.  He muttered something about Damascus and I said yes, we were headed to Damascus.  He told us that there had been a tragic event at Field Days in Damascus.  An elderly man in an old Cadillac plowed into the parade and struck several people. He knew some of the people and he had to keep going, and with that he hurried on down the trail. ( http://bigstory.ap.org/article/witnesses-car-strikes-crowd-va-parade) We had not heard any news out here on the trail, so we didn’t know anything about this incident. 

We came to Curley Maple Shelter and had trouble determining where the trail went from there.  There were several paths leading away from the shelter, as usual.  One usually went to water, one to the privy, or in this case - there being no privy – to the toilet area.  We went on down one of the trails and finally found a white blaze.

Curley Maple Shelter

Sitting beside the beautiful creek.

From here there was about 4 miles of leisurely walking beside a creek.  Aw – nice!  We met a couple of men coming to meet us going north who said we would coast into Erwin the rest of the way.  Well - it didn’t quite turn out that way because there was the dreaded one last UP before we got to the railroad tracks.  We also met Harry for the first time coming out of Erwin going north.  He spoke in broken English and asked us how far to the shelter.  We told him but I’m not sure he understood.  More about Harry later; we saw him many times on the trail after today. 

Lots of bridges like this in this area.

On the final descent, Wait-up took his boot off to check why his feet were hurting so bad.  Look at the picture and you can see why.   The wet boots, socks, and feet for the last couple of days lead to some blisters for both of us.  The first time we have had this problem. 

Oops, blisters!

After the final climb up and down, we crossed the railroad tracks and then the bridge going over the Nolichucky River and this time approached Uncle Johnny’s hostel from the north. Got there at 1:00 – always a welcome event to finish early in the day and have time to rest up.  Plus, it gives us time to move on up the highway and find a place to stay and leave our car.  This time we drove up to Roan Mountain Road where we had a semi-private room in the hostel of Mountain Harbour.  Good thing we called ahead, space was at a premium every night there.

Crossing the railroad tracks before coming back into Erwn.

The trail crosses the Nolichucky River bridge.

The Nolichucky River.

Greasy Creek Gap to Beauty Spot, Southbound

May 18, 2013
13.7 miles
9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

We woke up to a rainy day of hiking.  It was nice to meet Tom “10-K” Bradford today since I have seen his posts of Whiteblaze so many times and seen him mentioned in other hikers’ online journals. He picked us up at Nolichucky River where we left our car and shuttled us to Greasy Creek Gap to begin our hike.  At Greasy Creek Gap there is a well-known hostel called Greasy Creek Friendly.  Evidently she named it that because of a hostile neighbor who has given her some trouble so she wanted hikers to know that it was a friendly place. 

When we arrived at the gap, I went up to the porch to ask how to get to the trailhead.  There was a note on the table beside the door which said, “I am gone to trail days in Damascus.  Please help yourself to the hostel or the front porch.  Please don’t pee in my creek.”  Okay.  We didn’t get to meet Connie today.

So we started walking up the old jeep road behind the house to find the trailhead.  The bunkhouse is behind the house and there were a couple of hikers in the yard.  We asked them if we were headed in the right direction and they said yes.  We asked them if the trailhead was easy to find at the top of the hill and which way do we turn?  The lady said, “Well I’ve never been up there, but it’s easy and you turn to the left.” Okay.

After a few guesses on which path to take as we went up the hill, we found a campsite and the white blaze.  Wait-up pulled out his compass to help us find the southerly direction.  It said turn right on the trail.  Umm, that didn’t seem right.  Plus the lady said turn left, although she had never been up there. What to do?  I was thinking  - Have we ever gone north on the trail to go south?  Of course we have; the trail switches around all the time.  So, do we trust our instincts or go with the compass?  I thought about calling someone from one of the hostels to ask, but we didn’t have cell phone reception.  While I was wondering around on top of the mountain to see if I could get reception, I found a note on a tree with a “You are here” map.  We were able to determine from the map that we do indeed turn left to go south.  So off we went.    

We got to Iron Mountain Gap in record time – 4.2 miles in 1.5 hours.  Wow!  That was the first time we saw people to ask them if we were headed south, but we were glad to have them confirm that we were.  At 1:00 we met a nice brother and sister middle-age couple at Cherry Gap Shelter. Evidently they were trying to wait out the rain. 

The sign at Iron Mountain Gap

Just past Cherry Gap Shelter while I was stepping over a fallen tree on the trail, I heard a noise down the side of the mountain.  I immediately said, “What was that?”  Wait-up and I looked down the ravine to see a small bear scampering away down the hill.  He then climbed a tree while we were watching and looked back at us to see where we were and what we were doing.  We were just standing there watching him since we were not close to him.  When he spotted us again, he scampered down the tree and went away.  Too bad I didn’t have time to get my camera.  This is the first bear that Wait-up has seen on the trail, my second.  I saw one in Georgia. 

Having lunch under the overhang of a rock.

We had a hard time finding a dry place to eat lunch.  Resourceful Mr. Wait-up finally found a rock overhang and we were able to stay a little dry while eating. 

Then we started making the climb up Unaka Mountain.  It was a rocky path and a typical mountain.  When we reached the top of the mountain we came into a forest.  A spooky forest.  Since it was rainy and cloudy, it kinda looked like a haunted forest.  I was glad to exit it.  

Unaka Mountain was spooky in the fog.

 

When we came out on the other side of the forest, we met a man who seemed to be somewhat disoriented. He had already set up his tent for the night although it was early in the day. He told us that he had been lost, wondering around the mountain.  He was suppose to camp at a site before the mountain but couldn’t find it. We asked if he was alright and he said no, he was out of water.   Wait-up emptied his water bladder into the man’s water bottle so he would have water to prepare his evening meal.

We planned to camp on Beauty Spot.  We had to stop at the first available watering hole to resupply.  There was a nice campsite beside Highway 230 but, since we don’t like to camp beside roads, we got water and moved on.  It was hard to tell exactly where Beauty Spot was.  The highway ran alongside the trail off and on and in our book we saw USFS 230 listed twice along with Beauty Spot Gap and Beauty Spot.  And there was also a Deep Gap listed there with a campsite but it must have also been beside the road. Since it was raining and foggy, we couldn’t really see much of Beauty Spot anyway, so we finally just found a level spot in the woods and set up our tent in the rain.  Everything was wet by the time we got up the next morning.