2003 AT trip report Day 2

Monday, May 5
Brown Gap

I wake up to the pitter patter of rain on the hammock.  Dang.
I get up and start packing.  No movement comes from the
two tents.

I voice my opinion that it's not going to stop raining, and the
other two start packing up.

It rains.  Rain, rain, rain.  I arrive at the gap where the
shelter is supposed to be.  There's a path.  I follow
it.  There are footprints on it.. there must be a shelter,
right?

Eventually the footsteps peter out and I'm in the middle
of some very nice evergreens.  No shelter.  I go back
to the trail and notice the real path to the shelter, 20
yards down the trail.  Oops.  Once at the real shelter,
I strip and put on warm clothes for the lunch break.

After lunch we put our cold wet clothes back on and
keep walking.   We considered staying at the shelter
but it was early and we wanted to go a bit further.
The campsite we aimed at turned out to be notso hotso,
but we set up anyway.  Nothing else in the vicinity
seemed better.

Getting down to the campsite involves a steep slope
no matter how you do it.  We wipe out.  I do some damage
to the seat of my Provent pants, sliding butt first.

I set up my hammock on a slope, leaving the tiny valley
floor to Leapfrog and 10-kid (Nancy's new trailname.)
It's been raining quite a while and it's still dry, so it might
be okay.

During the night they find that it's not okay.  The waters
begin to rise.  The Nomads turn into small waterbeds.

Leapfrog feels unwell during the night.  I don't feel
so hot myself.  But at least I'm pretty dry.

10-kid shouts over the rain that if a car comes, she's
getting a ride.  Sometime during the night, a car does
come.  She shouts over the rain.  I can barely hear her.
Not wanting to get out of my hammock, I say "Do you
really want to leave that badly?"  Silence.  "If you
feel the same way in the morning, we'll find a way out"
I tell her.  The car has moved on anyway.

Lightning crashes.  It rains really really hard.  I
put in my earplugs to sleep.

2003 AT trip report Day 1

Sunday, May 4
North of Davenport Gap

With Miss Janet away for the overnight party, a hiker staying at the house takes over breakfast preparations.  I have a yummy biscuits and eggs.  We all hang out in the back yard in the sunshine.  I notice a lot of things hanging out to dry. Hmmm.

Miss Janet brings the first load of hikers back.  She is going to be very busy today.  A bored zeroing hiker offers to shuttle us to our starting point.  It will save us a lot of time.  Yay!  We drive and drive and drive and see a little bit of Asheville and finally get to the AT at I-40 near Davenport Gap.  We've weighed our packs while loading up - 31, 31, and 34 pounds. Not too bad, for five days food.  The others take tons of "getting ready to go" pictures, and we're off.

It's really pretty out.  The sky is hot and blue.  You can smell the pine trees.  I love that.

Soon we have a stream to cross.  In our first injury of the trip, Nancy falls in and skins her knee.  No lasting harm done, we doctor her a little and continue walking.  I notice signs for Standing Bear Farm.

In the late afternoon we arrive at our planned stopping point, a little spit of land between two streams.  The bugs are ferocious.  We quickly set up and get in our shelters. My hammock fly ends up staked in the middle of the stream, as there isn't enough land to go around.

Trip Report: Rockytop circuit hike day two

Big Run campsite to Brown's Gap,  6+miles, home

The voices kept going.  I had my peaceful mossy campsite to myself.  Bears didn't come get my food, though something clumsy did go crashing around breaking small limbs.  Bear, deer?  I don't know.  I was near a great spot on the river for going in to get a drink, so I probably had lots of company that I didn't know about.  I put in my ear plugs so my subconscious sentries would shut up about it.

I woke up at one point to see the moon peeking out through the trees.  Another time I woke to a roar and a spotlight - a low flying plane.  I have no idea why it was spotlighting the trees.

And then I opened my eyes and it was broad daylight.  Dawn kind of snuck up on me.  Usually I open my eyes once or twice and catch it creeping up on me, but not this time.  I kind of wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but on the other hand the best hiking of the day would be early, while it was still cool.  I told myself that at a minimum I needed to get up and pee, and while I was up I might as well retrieve the food bag.  Once the food bag is down, that gets me rolling on the day.

But once the food bag was down, I realized something.  I had two breakfasts and one dinner in there.  Only one of those items could be served cold.  And my stove was acting up for last night's dinner, so I had used more fuel than expected.  I couldn't cook tonight's dinner or tomorrow's breakfast.  My decision was made for me regarding my path today.  Back to the car.

That decided, I packed up and started heading upstream.  I did the first mile in my crocs, as there were four wadeable stream crossings.  Usually I don't bother, but the trail was so gentle that I could afford to wear shoes with no support for a bit.  It was nice after the fourth crossing to be able to put on dry shoes and socks.

I saw far more people today than yesterday.  At least twenty compared to two.  Hiking in the park on a weekday was genius.  I'll have to do that again.  I plan to work some weekends in near future, which means I'd have weekdays available.

The first couple of miles went by very quickly.  Then I had a long uphill slog out of the canyon.  I drank three liters of water and sweated vigorously.  I started to be glad that I was going home rather than planning to hike all day.  I'd have needed at least five liters of water just to stay hydrated in the heat.  Instead, I got to the car a little after noon and drove somewhere air conditioned for yummy food and beverage.

I noted that the mileages on the park markers did not match the mileages in my guide book.  I haven't bothered to do the math, but the hike I did was a bit longer than I expected.  Which doesn't matter I guess.

I stopped at Loft Mountain Wayside for lunch.  There were a lot of motorcyclists and a few bicyclists there.  Nobody looked as grungy or sweaty as me.  Ah well.  Backpackers are in the minority even in a park like Shenandoah.  It seems odd to me because that's all I go there to do, but the vast majority of visitors just ride down the road on one form of transportation or another, and never see any of the beauty that isn't visible from the road.

Loft Mountain Wayside, btw, has incredibly good pulled pork bbq.  Just FYI.

After my insanely good sandwich, I drove home.  I know I didn't spend more time driving than hiking on this trip, but it sure felt like it!  I have to really want it to drive down to the southern end of the park.  Now I remember why I usually hike in the northern or central sections.

JD was surprised to see me home, not having gotten my text messages regarding my stove situation.  It was nice to see him, though, and to have a relaxed evening.  I don't know if my long weekend made up for my hellish work week, but I know it tried really hard.  The weekend deserves a commendation.  And a bonus.