Time for Hikey Hikey
It's 7:30 p.m. [on April 3], and I’m already getting sleepy. I've already been in my tent for over an hour now, hiding from the weather. It started off snowing a little bit, then it turned into freezing rain, and now I think it's just rain, perhaps a mixture. The heavy drops hitting the tent sound like popcorn popping. [Wife note: They totally do on the recording!] Today was sort of an average mileage day, but it felt like a long day. But before I get into that, let me back up to this morning.
It was a good thing that I spent the night at the NOC, because there was a lot of rain last night. I got a pretty good night's sleep in the bunk house. Somehow, I lucked out and had the bunk room of eight beds all to myself, which was fabulous. For the low, low price of 36 bucks, I got my own private room! I tried to get a little bit of an earlier start this morning since I didn't have to take a tent down or anything, and being inside, I obviously didn't have to battle the cold, either.
I went over to the NOC's common kitchen area for breakfast, and this most recent time that I ran into Trail Magic — a couple days ago, at the top of Wayah Bald — someone insisted that I take an avocado with me. So I did. It took a few days to ripen, and this morning, I ate it with some tortillas, and it was a really good breakfast. I guess it turned out to be a good energy source, too, because I felt pretty good for the first part of the day.
I got hiking at about 8:30, and the first six miles out of the NOC have a bit of a reputation. They’re all up, so everybody gets nervous about that part. You have about 3,000 feet of elevation gain over six miles, and normally, you don't have to hike straight up for that long. Normally, there's a more equal distribution of ups, downs, and flats, but today, the first six miles were just up. And after the storm last night, the trail was quite wet. It was also pretty overcast and so humid that it felt like it was raining, even when it wasn’t.
But I managed to trudge my way up, and once you get high enough, there's a specific viewpoint where you can look back down on the Nantahala River. I took a picture of the view, but it was so foggy that there really wasn't any view. If you look closely at the picture, you might be able to see the river below.
It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure, but thankfully, it also wasn't as bad as I was expecting. At about seven miles in, there's a brief downhill. And then once you hit about 4,700 feet, you get to Sassafras Gap shelter. A lot of people choose to kind of throw in the towel at this point and stop there for the night. I wasn’t planning on staying there, but I did need to get some water, so I went down to the water source, and this solitary guy was just sitting there, staring off into space. I don’t know why, but he gave me the serious creeps. I said, “Hey, you staying here?” And he replied, “Yep.” And that was our whole conversation.
So I got my water and bailed out of there. Next was another steep uphill, and this time, it went up to about 5,100 feet to the peak of Cheoah Bald. And boy, the views up there were spectacular. The clouds broke, and there's a beautiful campsite at the top with a lovely view of the mountains. If it hadn’t been for the bad weather forecast, I would have probably stayed up there. But it's pretty exposed. So I think, had I stayed there, I would have been pretty miserable. Right now, I'm down in the woods and feeling pretty glad that there's some level of wind protection here.
Anyway, I pulled into camp, and most of the people who were already here had retreated to their tents. So I set up my tent, got some water, hung my bear bag, and then it was time to eat dinner. Basically, what you do is you hang the line for the bear bag ahead of time, so you don't have to do it after dinner, because it's kind of a pain in the neck. You string the line over a tree branch, and then it's already ready for the bear bag after you're done eating.
I cooked dinner at the same time as a hiker from Quebec named Bubbles, who’s a very nice person. I’m assuming she got her trail name because of her extremely positive attitude. At one point earlier in the day, our paths crossed, and I was basically just dragging ass, trying to get myself up to the peak. She took a quick break and then looked at me and said, “Okay! Time for hikey hikey!” I need to harness some of that attitude. She lived in arctic Canada and Nunavut for a long time when she was growing up because her father was a plumber. [Wife note: I feel like there’s more story there somehow...] It's definitely interesting, all the sorts of people you meet on the trail.
I cooked mashed potatoes with salmon again, which is great, and had a Twix bar for dessert. I wanted to get some calories in me before the cold night ahead. And just then, it started to rain, so it was time to retreat to my sleeping bag.
When you're at a campsite or shelter and there's inclement weather, everyone just hunkers down in their tent. It’s not really a situation that’s conducive to socializing. So here I am, but I certainly can't complain. It's quite toasty in here, and I think I'll just listen to a podcast. Most likely, I’ll fall asleep before 8 o'clock, which seems kind of funny, but such the life of the thru-hiker.
