Appalachian Trail Section hiking: Big Butt Mountain

DAY SEVEN – Big Butt to Log Cabin Drive – Southbound
March 21, 2013
13.3 miles, 10.5 hours

When we woke up in the morning after sleeping off and on, we found that there was at least 3 inches of snow on the ground. We lit our Jetboil stove inside the tent to warm it up while we put on every piece of clothes we had with us, then made coffee. Our water in our water bottles and water bladders had frozen. Wait-up had a frozen Cliff bar for breakfast, but I found it too hard to eat, so I had dried fruit for breakfast. We were very cold while taking down the tent and packing our gear.

The view from our tent door
in the morning.

We finally got packed up and started up the mountain toward Big Butt about 9:00 a.m. It was very cold and windy all day, highs in the 30’s. Our water did not thaw all day. On the trail we met one man headed north who had icicles hanging from his handlebar mustache.

The snow around our tent.

We hiked in snow all day long; luckily it was not frozen over yet. It was actually not as treacherous as I thought it would be with soft snow covering the roots so that we didn’t slip on them. We had lots of uphill to do today.

This section of the trail southbound is not well blazed! There were many times that we would not have been able to follow the trail in the snow if were not for the footprints of those we met going north. Thank God for small blessings. No signposts either.

Jerry's Cabin actually had a fireplace.

I was at the top of a rocky ledge, Wait-up ws at the bottom.
We climbed up and over rocks like this for several miles.

The section past Jerry’s Cabin called Big Firescald Knob is approximately 1.5 miles of very rocky terrain, going up and then down numerous times. I could not believe some of the climbs that we were required to make, and in the snow I was being extra carelful. The rocky trail ran right on the peak of the mountain for several miles and we had a view of both the Tennessee side and the North Carolina side. However, I was so intent on not slipping on the rocks that I forgot to take pictures of the view. My camera would not work due the batteries being so cold and I was taking pictures with the one phone that we still had battery life on, trying not to run the battery down.

It was a very hard day. About 3:30 in the afternoon, we stopped at a spring to refill our water bottles. While pumping the water through our filter, I looked at Wait-up and he looked at me and I said, “Honey, let’s go home.” He didn’t hesitate to say “Okay.” So we made a phone call to our son-in-law and asked him to cancel our plans with Uncle Johnny’s hostel in Erwin for the next two nights. Unfortunately I had stored the numbers in my phone and not Wait-up’s phone, and my phone was completely dead by this time. Lesson learned—store the phone numbers of our shuttles and hostels in both phones next time or write them down.

One of the views from
Big Firescald Knob

After a brief stop at Little Laurel Shelter for a snack, it was a very nice and easy 3.3 mile hike on down to Log Cabin Drive. At 7:30 p.m. we were finished. We walked back down Log Cabin Drive because, again I could not get the phone number to the hostel from my phone.

We found out from Hattie that they had rescued three hikers from last night. One suffered from hypothermia, one with a twisted knee and one with a twisted ankle. We spoke to the young man with hypothermia in the Hemlock Hollow bunkhouse and his story was that he was spending the night in a shelter and the snow blew in on him, he got up and got his tent and just wrapped it around him, it got condensation in it which turned to ice. When he woke up again he was in bad shape, he called a couple of his hiking buddies who were on another part of the trail to come up and help him down off the mountain. Whew! glad that didn't happen to us!

After a farewell to Fred and Hattie at Hemlock Hollow, we were on the road to Knoxville, Tennessee where our daughter and son-in-law are staying right now while looking for a house. They will be moving there soon. Maybe we can hike out from there next time as we go through the Smokies.

I had said that I wanted to be hiking the AT on my 60^th birthday. However, I was just as glad on March 22^nd to be waking up warm and snuggly in the Holiday Inn in Knoxville. We went to breakfast at IHOP with Amber and Ashley, then drove home to beautiful Pace, Florida.

Our total milage on this trip was right at 77 miles in six days of hiking.

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.