Big Spring Shelter to Winding Stair Gap

APRIL 15, 2012

Big Spring Shelter to Winding Stair Gap - Easy

9.1 miles in 5 hours

Today was suppose to be a 12.2 day which meant it would be late when we get into Franklin tonight and not give us much time to rest before starting again tomorrow.  But, thanks to our decision yesterday to go on over Albert Mountain, we will have more time to restock and do our laundry this afternoon when we go into town.  That’s one of those decisions that you hate at the time, but are glad you did it.

After an uneventful night in the tent and a good night’s rest, we left camp at 8:20 and had a fairly easy hike.

As we were approaching Rock Gap Shelter from the trail above, I couldn’t help but notice that we could see right into the privy as we passed by.  Good thing no one was in there!  In fact, we found this to be true of several privies in NC- not very private.

Elevation 4160'

First view of US 64 from above.

At the paved road intersection beside the sign pointing the way to Standing Indian Campground, we met Qwyatt, a thru-hiker, waiting on his wife to come spend the night with him in Franklin.  He offered us a ride into Franklin but we still had 3.7 miles to go before we quit, so we continued across the road and into the forest again. He promised to pick us up at Winding Stair Gap if we were there when they went by.  We found a good water source just past the intersection and refilled our water bottles. 

We reached Winding Stair Gap along with four young men.  They gathered beside the parking lot while I ventured out to the side of the road to stick out my thumb to hitchhike.  They said to my husband that I should not be playing like that because someone might stop.  He said I wasn’t playing; I was really trying to hitch a ride into town.   Wait-up joined me in my efforts and in about 15 minutes a car suddenly pulled over to the side of the road.  A nice lady inside said “Y’all look like good folks.”  “We are,” I said, to which she said, “Well, get in!”  So we stuffed one backpack in the already-loaded trunk of her small car and another one we crammed in the back seat with me.  I don’t know how many times that sweet lady said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”  Well, I couldn’t believe we had hitchhiked either but we did, just part of the AT experience! 

Catch-up hitchhiking into Franklin.

Lynn is a retired educator, just like us as it turned out.  She took us right to the Sapphire Inn where we had already reserved a room.  If you read this, Lynn, let us say again “Thank you!”

Wait-up hitchhiking into Franklin.

Standing Indian Shelter to Big Spring Shelter

APRIL 14, 2012

Standing Indian Shelter to Big Spring Shelter - Moderate except Albert Mountain, strenuous
14.4 miles in 10 hours

We left the shelter at 7:45 a.m. after an uneventful and restful night.  We had a short uphill to reach the summit of Standing Indian Mountain then started down to Beech Gap.  It was relatively easy like “a walk in the park” with lots of switchbacks and trails on the crest of the mountain under shade.  The weather was cool and pleasant.  Beech Gap is a beautiful stopping point with large Beech trees and a large, nice camping area.  Although we needed water, we decided not to trek downhill ¼ mile from Beech Gap to get it, hoping we would find some on the trail.  In fact, we did find a couple of very nice springs directly on the trail as we went north just a short distance.

Beech Gap, Elevation 4460'

View from Timber Ridge Trail, Elevation 4700'

Beautiful violets could be seen all along the trail.

Blue Ridge Gap to Standing Indian Shelter

APRIL 13, 2012
Blue Ridge Gap to Standing Indian Shelter - Moderate

11.4 miles in 7.5 hours

   


The rough road leading up to Blue Ridge Gap.

To begin the North Carolina section of the AT, we shuttled to the drop-off point at Blue Ridge Gap and began to climb the rough, slag road up to the AT.Too bad that road is not maintained, it could be a good access point close to the GA/NC line.

The beginning of the AT at Blue Ridge Gap.
 

It was a tough ascent but we got to the AT and began our journey at 9:00 a.m.

Here the trail enters the Nantahala National Forest.

At 10:40 we reached the tree where the GA/NC line sign is posted and took the same pictures we had taken in September when we were here at this point on our first section hike.Read all about that one on the Georgia Section blog. GEORGIA SECTION BLOG

Elevation 3840'

Past the sign tree we were beginning unchartered territory for us. We reached Bly Gap just past the line and saw the other famous tree with an interesting shape in the middle of the trail. In spite of the training we had done, it was a rough morning for me. On each incline I was gasping for breath and at each level spot I wanted to shout “Thank ya, Je-sus!” like Flo frequently does in the Yada Yada Prayer Group books (by Neta Jackson). However, at the end of the day I did not have sore muscles like last time, so the training must have done some good.

The famous tree in the middle of the trail at Bly Gap.

Elevation 4300'

Muskrat Creek Shelter for a lunch break.

NORTH CAROLINA SECTION

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Today we drove to North Carolina and began to put our logistics into place to begin our second section hike from the NC/GA line to Fontana Dam, NC.  First we drove to Franklin and checked out the Budget Inn and the Sapphire Inn.  The Budget Inn was full and we liked the Sapphire Inn better, so we made reservations for Sunday night and dropped off a resupply box.  Then we drove to Nantahala Outdoor Center in Wesser and made reservations for a two-person room in Basecamp for Wednesday night.  We parked the car at NOC and checked and rechecked to make sure we had everything we needed for our first three days on the trail.  It’s a scary feeling to leave our car realizing that if we didn’t take it with us now we would not have it tomorrow when we started out on our hike and would not see our car for 6 days.   

We are using the same wonderful shuttle drivers out of Hiawassee that we used in September in Georgia.  Joyce and Sally are two retired ladies from Florida who moved to GA and have a beautiful home near the Blue Ridge Gap.  We have learned to find shuttle drivers who live close to your point of need in order to keep the cost down.  Joyce and Sally are very reasonable.  Sally met us at NOC and took us back down to Hiawassee, GA to spend the night at the wonderful Holiday Inn Express (King size bed with Jacuzzi and free HOT breakfast for $80 plus $10.16 tax).   The Holiday Inn is conveniently located next door to the wonderful Daniels Steakhouse where they have all you can eat buffets, which we took advantage of for our evening meal. 

We were excited to get our adventure underway and arose the next morning with the sun, went to breakfast downstairs and then relaxed to look at our Thru-Hiker’s Companion once more while waiting on our shuttle.  The Companion was nowhere to be found – I had left it in the car!  OMG!  How could we hike for 6 days without our Companion?  We depend on it to plan our stops at shelters or campsites and also to know where water is along the trail.  Okay, what are we going to do now?  Making a mad dash downstairs to the public computer, I found that someone else was using it.  So back upstairs to wait.  Time was running out, but finally we got to the computer and quickly found a list of trail features with amenities on Summitpost.org.  Thank goodness I remembered seeing it before and knew it was there.  It doesn’t have a description of each site like the Companion does, but it will do for now.  We printed it out just in time before Joyce arrived to drive us to the trail.  RELAX…..!  We are ready to go.   

Training Update

We have continued our training on the hills at Pond Creek with added weight in our backpacks.  Most recently we hiked 9 miles with 36 pounds for him and 26 pounds for me.  Not bad, we made it fine. We are doing this hike once a week for 5 weeks now.

Two days a week we are continuing our laps around the soccer field and up and down the bleachers.  -The most we have done is 1250 step-ups on the bleachers and 5 laps around the field. A total of 7.28 miles.  22 to 24 miles a week.

We are now backing down on our bleacher work since our packs are getting heavier.  We are up to 42/31 pounds now.  Almost trail weight.  We will get to 45/35 a couple of times on the field and at least one long hike before we hit the trail.

The weather is getting warmer than we thought at this time, so we are thinking about going earlier to NC to begin our hike. We are now maybe a couple of weeks away.  We will not do any training hikes the week before we go to give ourselves some recoup time before the real thing. 

We now have to begin to get our food and other supplies together and pack them up for the trip.  We will be using a Katadyn Hiker Pro water filter this time instead of the iodine tablets.  Maybe we won't have to carry so much water on our back.

Training with backpacks

Yesterday we loaded up our backpacks with 25 pounds for Wait-up and 15 pounds for me.  Then we drove to Pond Creek bridge and walked up and down the hill on both sides of the bridge for a total of 7 miles.  Time was 2 hours and 20 minutes.  If you live anywhere around here, you know that the Pond Creek hills are pretty good ones; I cringe when I see folks riding bikes up the hill on either side of the creek.

Felt good to put my backpack on.  But before it was over, I was ready to get it off again!  It was a pretty warm day, so that didn't help any.  We were tired, but felt that we were in better shape this year since we have been training for awhile now on the bleachers at the soccer field.  Walking up the hill was different though since there was not much flat land between, it was steady walking uphill. 

We plan to do this once a week or so between our soccer field training just to break the monotony of training.

We're getting there!

Training for North Carolina

We are in our second week of training to prepare for Phase II of our Appalachian Trail hiking experience.  We are shooting for the end of April/first of May to do the lower part of North Carolina (approximately 90 miles).  At that time, it should be warming up some and not hot yet.  According to http://www.almanac.com/weather/longrange/nc/asheville

"Winter will be slightly milder and much drier than normal, although snowfall will be above normal. The coldest periods will be in mid-December and early and mid- to late February. The snowiest periods will be in early to mid-December, mid-January, and mid-February.  April and May will be cooler and drier than normal, with May especially chilly.

Summer will be a bit cooler than normal, with the hottest periods in early June and early July. Rainfall will be below normal in the north and above normal in the south.
September and October will be much cooler and drier than normal."

We have been monitoring the weather at each of the points along the trail through http://sophiaknows.com/atdb/weather.php

Our training regime consists of walking around the soccer field close to our house and also climbing the bleachers on the field. There are 15 sets of bleachers.  We began last week with 3 laps around the field and 90 times up and down the bleachers.  This week we increased to 4 laps around the field and up to 135 times up and down the bleachers.  We are already feeling stronger and have maintained a rate of 3.2 miles per hour.  Total distance went from 4.68 miles last week to 6 miles this week.  We do this 4 times a week. 

If we can maintain this pace, we will be walking over 10 miles a day and doing 345 reps on the bleachers before the end of April.  At some point about 3 or 4 weeks out, we will add our full pack to our back during training.

We are determined to get ourselves into shape before we take off on our next leg of the AT to try to avoid the sore muscles that we experienced on the GA section.  Also, we would like to be able to cover around 12 miles a day at the beginning of the section in order to make it to a shelter or a campsite each night.