All in a good days walk - Part 5
The following has been transcribed directly from the journal that I kept while hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT).
Friday, April 28, 2000
7:45 am wake up. 45 degrees. Rained steadily all night long. Only a few drops of water in the tent. Need to waterproof it next time. Would be nice to have the other piece of the blue drop cloth (I am using a blue camp tarp (from Wal-Mart) as a ground cloth to protect the bottom of the tent. I cut it to the size of the tent) to use as a small overhead shelter so if it kept raining we would have a place to step out and pack up.
Think we are going 5.7 miles today and stop at an Outdoor center called Walasi-Yi. We will be headed up Blood Mountain-the highest point on the AT in Georgia-4,461 feet-long continuous climb.
Can see the sun peaking through a bit, but bitterly cold with the clouds and wind.
*Note on water procurement-DON’T carry more than you need! Water weight is a killer!
10:23 am. 46 degrees. Just beyond Woodshole Shelter waiting to climb Blood Mountain. Looks cloudy up there. Just ran across a 77 year old woman and her son hiking up from the parking lot below Springer Mountain (which is where the AT begins).
Made it atop Blood Mountain-what a climb. Many switchbacks. Started off as lush green hills with a sparsely populated forest of trees. Looks like a fire recently swept through (after we got to Walasi-Yi, I confirmed that the fire had come through in January I believe). We have been walking on the Tennessee Valley Divide. To the North the weather seems dark and to the south it seems clearer. We are ascending into the clouds that have been hiding Blood all day. Higher up, the trees change to small, curled over, thick trees with no leaves. It looks like all the trees are dead. The higher we go, the rockier the trail becomes. Can see about 20 feet ahead of us.
We summit Blood at 11:15 am and take some pictures in the stone shelter that was built in 1934. Climb atop a huge boulder that, if it weren’t for the clouds, would allow us to see down in the valley (100 miles on a clear day I am told). We climb down passing through the changing trees again and over even rockier terrain. Steep switchbacks on the climb down.
At the bottom is Walasi-Yi Center. We run into the guy and his dog and the couple who was with them (they are the people who stayed in the devils kitchen with us 2 nights ago. His dog was carrying a pack-he said, “No one rides for free!”). They stayed the night in Suches with a farmer and will stay the night here also. Not sure where the kid from Durham went to but he had no tent last night!
Washing and drying our clothes here and restocking on food. Mike almost left us today to take care of personal business, however, in the end he decided to stay. Changed clothes so I could wash everything.
We decided to get picked up in Hiawassee on Wednesday-hope to go up and touch the North Carolina border and make it back by Wednesday for the pick up. Will be home by Thursday.
Was 45 degrees on top of Blood Mountain and 55 degrees midway down. Was 1,250 feet up and 1,000 feet down!
5:30 pm. Clothes weren’t dry yet so we took them out and had to move on. Climbed up Levelland Mountain. Rocky climb, hurts like hell but everything feels pretty good. Came down rocky switchbacks (saw 2 brown rabbits on Levelland). 2.1 miles later we found a good campsite. It is Swaim Gap. A saddle between two hilltops high above a valley on both sides. There are trees, but not a lot. We arrived at 6:30 pm and set the tents up quickly. Off in the north we can see rain coming our way. We build a fire and eat stovetop and rice and apricots. Also had cocoa and skittles! Awesome skittles!
Rain arrived with a hellish wind. Mike and I packed rocks and logs around our tent to help ease the heavy winds. The fire was burning good as the rain hit-Mike and I dove for the tent. Rain only lasted a few minutes. Sunlight finally gone, rain too, everyone gathered around the fire and kept it blazing. I stayed in the tent and relaxed and watched.
Was thinking today that I am not thinking a lot about anything special. Not even food. Everything seems to be a matter of, “Where is the next hill and how big and how steep is it?” You just push on up the hills and hope for some level, non-rocky, ground.
We are at 32.8 miles on the actual AT and Hiawassee is at 66.8 miles.
Lips are chapped. Met a crazy haired guy who is a forest ranger assistant in Alaska. I took a picture of him sizing a pack for Donny. He is going to Alaska in 2 weeks and has been living outside, here, in the woods with 9 Malamute dogs for 8 weeks.
A guy just came walking down the trail, in the dark, and just turned his headlamp on. He said he came across 4 Black Bears 2 miles ahead on the trail.
Overall Total: 41.8 miles
