The following has been transcribed directly from the journal that I kept while hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT).

Wednesday, October 4th, 2000
Another beautiful day. Todd is going to drop us off at Allen Gap on NC 208and Tim and I are going to walk down into Hot Springs over the next 2 days - only 14.7 miles. To again quote the trail book, "The grade is gradual and involves no difficulty." We will have to verify what no difficulty means - I hope we have the same definition as the author does.

We are supposed to be camping in the Smokey's this weekend with our families but there is a cold front working it's way toward us and by Friday it is supposed to bring rain and freezing temperatures - hardly and enjoyable weekend of camping. Stefanie is going to figure out some alternate plans perhaps? "The best laid plans go awry." Luckily we came back in time to change our plans without incurring a huge expense.

11:00am We dropped Tim's truck off in Hot Springs and are now driving back up the trail to Allen Gap where Todd will drop us and leave us. I sure enjoy walking with Todd. I think out different personalities compliment each other and I think it allows us to hang out without getting annoyed with each other too much. He has a 400 mile drive home and then he is off to California for a wedding.

11:35am We find the trail as it obscurely crosses the road just near the Tennessee border. Tim and I jump out, gather our gear and say goodbye to Todd.

No difficulty my ass! Right off the bat we start a serious climb - pouring sweat but on we drag with no end in sight. A turkey flies across the trail just a few feet ahead of me so I stop to look for more - don't find any more but I keep on walking slowly and it actually feels nice. But now we are hardly moving. So really, you have to find your own pace - for me, going slow means a longer time spent walking - if I go fast I will get there sooner, but what will I have missed along the way? Oh well, on we go - fast not slow.

1:35pm 71º We arrive at Spring Mountain shelter which lies directly on the trail which is atypical of any other shelter I have seen yet. This shelter is on a saddle and seems to sit on the NC/TN border.

Well, after a break, on we go. Not sure how far we will go today but there is no rush or real goal. The more we do today, the less we have to do tomorrow.

2:00pm Hike on. Light breeze, clear skies - few clouds - birds chirping and bugs zipping by. The leaves are gaining some color, even more so than they seemed just 15 miles to the southwest in Hot Springs and beyond.

3:00pm Made it to a campsite on the side of Rich Mountain. We still have many hours of sunlight left - will talk to Tim about how much further we want to go tonight.

Well, looks like the decision has been made for us...the spring has very little water flow so we have to keep on going for something better.

A hiker named Rex came up the hill from the South. We saw him pass over Max Patch a few days ago. He said that he first hiked from Harpers Ferry to Kathadin starting in June and then caught a bus back to Springer and in now working his way back to Harpers Ferry. On he goes. Seems like he has the itch to move out fast and not take the time to see the sites...to each his own pace.

Anyhow, we move on to a side trail to the Rich Mountain fire tower where we are promised awesome views. So, up we go. The tower is 40 ft. tall and has a staircase going up it. We climb the stairs but at the top there is a grate preventing us from getting to the observation deck...almost. Some one took the liberty of knocking out one set of hinges that allowed us to crawl through and on to the deck. Wow! I sure wish I knew another word to describe this, but it is awesome! The mountains in the distance are all smokey and when you stare at them for a few seconds, they begin to look like clouds. We can see Hot Springs, Bluff Mountain, Deer Park Mountain, Spring Mountain and many more. Very nice.

3:45pm We are back on the trail and we have 2.4 miles until an overpass taking us over Highway 25/70 which leads into Hot Springs. I estimate 45 minutes. This is all downhill and I roll on down passing an older man who left at 3:00pm. I arrive at the overpass just under 45 minutes later and take a break and eat some candy. OH, to satisfy my craving that I had a few days earlier, I bought a bag of Sour Patch Kids candy! I am enjoying them now.

Looks like we have 1 mile to go until a lot of water and a campsite. I drink my last few ounces of water and move on across the bridge where the trail ascends via switchbacks 500 ft. We leave the wooded trail and then parallel an old road which leads to some fields, down through some berry bushes, across another field and down to a pond. It is 5:15pm. We have little to no water between the two of us so we assess the campsite and the water source.

The pond here is 3 ft. below it's normal level and there is an eerie film floating on top of it. I spot a spring about 20 ft. below a dam wall but I see an orange slime around it and the small settled pool has that familiar eerie film on it also. Not too good. Tim crosses over the dam and heads over another ridge in search of some better water. He finds something but it is a ways out and may not be anything better than what we have here.

After a couple of minutes spent thinking about our water situation and the water that is available, we decide to push on and head for another campsite and another water source.

6:00pm We have 1 and a half hours before sunset. On we go. We are 4.8 miles from the car and the hike looks to be downhill except for one short uphill section. We are climbing steadily and we are getting further and further from any water that may be down in the valley. After another downhill, we float right back up on a long uphill stretch. The sun is beginning to disappear behind the mountains and it is getting dark down in the valleys. The bugs are getting louder and it seems that there is more life in the woods now that the sun is going away. 3 turkeys fly across my path and I see a few more on the ground and then another one after a few more minutes.

7:39pm Sunset. New we are racing downhill and against the darkness. There are no hopes of finding any water until we hit the French Broad River. We stop for a moment to climb out onto a rocky ledge overlooking Hot Springs and the river and then continue our race against the darkness...we never planned or wanted to do a night hike...but here it comes.

Darkness wins and we are now sliding down lose gravel on never-ending switchbacks on our descent to the river bed. We really can't see it, but somehow we know that we are still on the trail so very cautiously and very quickly, we push on. Now, more than ever I keep a vigil for the white trail markings that signify the Appalachian Trail and confirm that we are on course. We level out along the river bed and keep on going. We can see the moons reflection on the water and an occasional light breaks through the trees across the river. It is dark. We finally leave the immediate vicinity of the river and pass by a huge building of some sort. I thinking it may have been a rafting company. Now we are like aliens in a new place. It's like we are suddenly in someone's backyard and it appears that we have lost the trail. Nope, we spot a few marks on a pole a ways down this apparent driveway. We get to the end of it and come out on a street. There is a sign pointing to the AT North (where we came from) but nothing showing us South. It does point to another trailhead, so we decide to head in that direction.

We walked into the "Backwoods of America." The more we walked, the creepier it got. All the houses were in an extremely run down condition with No Trespassing signs on everything. It seemed like all the vehicles were up on blocks and there were no signs of the trail and it was pitch black (there was little moonlight). We were getting further and further from the sounds of civilization so we quickly decided to turn around and get out of there. We finally walked to an overpass that looked familiar and to the right, in the woods, I noticed some steps climbing the embankment to the highway.

We climbed over the guardrail and there we were - on the bridge over the French Broad River on the edge of Hot Springs. We walked to the car and passed a bit of history: