Later in the day after taking photos of the waterfall and butterfly we hit Sam's Gap where a group of hikers were hanging out and informed us that we just missed some trail magic that was handing out good craft beers. Oh well. The trail then went up and up to the top of Big Bald Mountain which had even more amazing views than Max Patch but it was extremely windy and thus extremely cold so we didn't stick around too long. It was pretty cool seeing the trail snake off in the distance over the next mountain.
The trail winding away from Big Bald Mountain
We stopped for dinner at the Bald Mountain Shelter which had a picnic table built by a local Boy Scout Troop which is fairly common around the AT. However, this troop did a terrible job and the legs of the table did not slant out very far, they barely ran underneath the seats. So when Dan sat down on my side of the table, it flipped over and everything spilled. Luckily, about 10 seconds before he sat down, I turned off my stove and zipped closed my Mountain House pouch full of boiling water. We pushed on a little further to meet some friends at the Whistling Gap campsite where another hiker already had a fire roaring and I met a fellow hammocker who had snakeskins for storing his tarp and I decided I'd be investing in a set of those. The next morning I passed over High Rocks which I thought offered cooler formations than views.
High Rocks
We got to Erwin and stayed at Uncle Johnny's hostel which is right on the trail. I stayed at their "Hammock Hut" which was a pavilion with columns for hanging hammocks but my big, luxurious, Cadillac-of-hammocks was too long for the column set up so I had to improvise and hang from the rafters. We took the hostel shuttle 15 minutes away to grab an Italian dinner and resupply at Walmart where I finally splurged $1 to buy a pair of flip flops. For my first four towns I would just find a pair in the hiker boxes and wear those around town but all Uncle Johnny's had to offer was a pair that was about five sizes too small.
Dan and I took a full Zero-day on Friday and took some of the hostel's hoopty loaner bicycles to ride into town to hit up the grocery store and then stop by a place that had an all you can eat pizza and salad buffet. As we were devouring plates and plates of food the hostel's lunch shuttle arrived and 12 hungry hikers poured into the pizza place. It was great that we beat the lunch rush because the hoard waited around a long time for new pizzas to come out of the oven. We took the dinner shuttle again and ate at a Mexican place where a 60oz pitcher of margarita's was on the menu!
The next day was pretty wet and chilly back on the trail as it poured the night before (glad I was covered by the Hammock Hut) and I spotted an Eastern Newt. As we climbed higher in elevation the fog rolled back in and created yet another eerie setting as I walked through the dense spruce forest on top of Unaka Mountain. We stopped for dinner at the Cherry Knob Shelter and then did another 4.4 miles to a campsite in an old apple orchard.
Red Spotted Newt
Unaka Summit
The next morning was freezing and I prepared breakfast in short steps with warming up in my hammock in between. Putting on cold wet socks was terrible and I had to do jumping jacks and toe wiggles to keep my feet from going numb as I packed up camp. We finally hit some trail magic the next day thanks to Luigi, Slug, and Anthony who brought a propane tank and big heater to serve hot chili and also had cold beers...and this was the first time in my life I wished the beer wasn't so cold.
Thanks for the trail magic, it was much appreciated even if you got totally showed up the very next day.
We warmed up and then started the ascent of Roan Mountain with plans to camp halfway up at Ash Gap since the weather was calling for freezing rain. Luckily, it only snowed and after reaching Ash Gap we decided to climb to the summit since it will only be snow and not rain as we went higher. It was insane hiking while it was snowing on May 6th… and in Tennessee. We stayed at Roan High Knob Shelter which is the highest shelter on the AT, residing at 6194 feet, and I was thankful to find that it was an actual cabin with a door instead of the usual 3-walled structure.
A winter wonderland as we ascended Roan Mountain...on MAY 6TH
I think there was a communication issue between the cabin builders and the chimney builders, this was built a mile from the cabin!
The next day we hiked across balds with insanely ice-whipped vegetation (I later learned is called Rime Ice) and I was glad we didn't try to cross this stretch last night. It was beautiful to see the deep blue sky contrast the snow covered trees and we soon went back down below the snowline and to the familiar forest.
RIME ICE!!!!
After stopping for lunch, Dan and I decided to take a short side trail to check out the iconic Overmountain Shelter where we happened to run into trail magic that transcended all previous trail magic. A hiking legend, Mother Goose, who has hiked over 45,000 miles all over the country was in attendance and said she has never experienced anything like it in all of her travels. Full story here.
We had one big climb up Hump Mountain and then a long 2500ft decline over five miles to leave the Roan Highlands behind and arrive just outside the town of Roan Mountain. The trail finally crossed the NC/TN border for the last time after hopping back and forth for hundreds of miles, it was nice to finally know for sure what state I was in. The town had a small hiker festival this weekend so all hostels were full and we had to camp near US19 which had tons of road noise all night as semis went barrelling past.
Endless hills from the top of Hump Mountain
Later North Carolina