Appalachian Trail Section hiking: Sam's Gap

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!

The view on the trail to Big Bald

On the trail to Big Bald.

Beautiful flowers and blooming trees on the trail.

On top of Big Bald.

On Top of Big Bald

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.