339.3 miles in

I’m definitely in Tennessee now.  I think.  It’s so hard to tell in this area.  The AT follows the NC/TN border for the entire duration of the Smokies, then hops thoroughly into TN for a bit, then rides the border for awhile longer, then goes back into TN, then jaunts into VA for 500 miles or so.  Long story short, I’ve almost certainly been in TN by now, though I couldn’t tell you when.  I’m in TN now, but I’m at Uncle Johnny’s hostel, and not quite on the AT (though I am pretty darn close).

So I had a doctor appointment in Hot Springs to have my knee checked out, to be certain I’m not hobbling myself by continuing to hike.  Doc says my knee’s fine, that I’ve just got moderate tendinitis, and that if it keeps hurting then I should just start eating Ibuprofen like candy.  Seriously, he said as long as I’m taking single digits (like, up to 9 a day), there’s nothing to worry about.  Armed with the good news, I doped up and climbed 11.4 miles and 2084 feet out of Hot Springs to Spring Mountain Shelter.  Having spent the morning gorging myself at the Hot Springs diner while waiting for my appointment, and with a full 5 days of food, the climb was rather difficult.  Also by the time I arrived at 7-ish, the 5-person shelter was quite obviously full, so I tented.  Legionnaire had arrived much earlier and was glad to see I’d made it, despite my exceedingly late start.

In the morning I headed 15.4 miles to Jerry Cabin Shelter.  The day was uneventful, and the shelter was rather abused.  Someone there had the ALDHA handbook however, which informed us that the cabin was named for a man named Jerry… something, who volunteered for 20-some years and maintained 3 miles of the AT, including this shelter.  The place was a sty before he took over, and he transformed it into one of the cleanest shelters around by packing out 20 bushels of trash (how much trash in a bushel?).  Jerry also had a sense of humour, and installed a lightbulb and telephone in the shelter, despite the fact that it obviously had no electricity.

I also met a man at this shelter who had mailed his cold weather gear home at Hot Springs, which turned out to be a mistake since the previous night had dropped into the 20’s.  He was busy recovering from mild hypothermia.  The night at this shelter also got to be quite cold, so he has my sympathy.  Unfortunately that’s all he has, as all my insulation was needed for myself.  Fortunately it warmed up quite a bit after these two cold nights.

The next day I hiked 14.7 miles to Hogback Ridge Shelter.  I don’t remember anything about this hike, so it must have been uneventful.  Looking at my guidebook now however, I am noticing that I passed Sam’s Gap that morning, at which I had the chance to stop at a diner for breakfast or lunch.  I forgot about this opportunity at the time, and I’m now disappointed that I was living on hiker gruel at the time.

At Hogback I decided that I could probably start pushing 20 mile days and be in pretty good shape, but at that pace I would end up getting to Damascus, VA about the time that Trail Days ended.  This year is the 25th Trail Days celebration, and Trail Days is the biggest hiking party thing that happens, so needless to say there will be a lot of people (hiker people) there.  Since Damascus is right on the AT, it’s highly likely that a large number of people will start hiking immediately after Trail Days.  As such, I’d like to avoid sharing a 6-person shelter with 200 trail friends, and I’ve decided to continue doing 15 mile days until Trail Days is safely over, and the crowd dissipated.  That means rather than do 20.7 miles to No Business Knob Shelter, I instead did 16.0 miles to Spivey Gap, which turned out to be a wonderful little camping site right next to a tasty stream (I scavenge drinking water, remember?).  Legionnaire, 2G, Pickle, and a few others decided to share the site with me, which was fine, because it’s huge.  Also at Spivey Gap, I helped 2G and Pickle bear-bag by allowing them to share my line, and my PCT method combined with the sheer number of bags (literally, like 6 bags) meant that all of our food was nearly permanently marooned in the tree.  In the morning I was however able to retrieve the bags with equal parts luck, ingenuity, and muscle.

After retrieving my food I packed up and hiked 11 miles to Erwin, TN.  That’s where I am now.  Uncle Johnny’s hostel is right on the AT, on the far edge of Erwin.  There are three daily shuttles into town for right-now-food, on-the-trail-food, and beer.  I’m a bit starved, so I can’t wait for the 6:00 to the pizza place.  Not sure where I’m going tomorrow, but Roan Mountain is about 40 miles away, so in about 3 days I should be there.  The internet here is pretty quick, but their upstream is painful, so I can’t upload any videos or photos at the moment.  I may be able to put stuff up from in town somewhere tomorrow morning.  We’ll see.  Updating this site is starting to interfere with my hiking, since I’ve started dreading and avoiding 0 days.  It’s hard to hike 15 miles and also find 1 hour to shower and do laundry (pre-requisite to going into public), 2 hours to update the blog, 1 hour to grocery shop, and 1-2 hours to eat restaurant food.  I’m starting to feel more comfortable on the trail than in civilization.