The Appalachian Adventure: June 2010
This was quite an adventure full of everything you'd hope to hear about a hiking / camping trip.
June 12 - June 16 2010
DAY 1:
Steve just arrived at my house yesterday evening. I worked at Lowe's today and if Steve can contain his determination, we would have left for the Appalachian Trail tomorrow. However, i checked up on Steve during my lunch break and he's raring to go and convinces me we should leave NOW for the mountains! I head back to work and after pleading with one of the managers, he finally lets me clock out early.
I hadn't done much packing, if any, and had to gather everything i needed all at once. I packed everything i absolutely needed into a borrowed external frame bag and had room for extra beneficial items; the only thing i lacked was food but it turned out Steve had A LOT of MRE's packed in his car. Still, i had a decent amount of weight on my shoulders. We left my house in the late afternoon and headed East from Nashville. It took longer than expected to get there and decided to make a stop along the way to eat and get gas, and i was able to buy a couple bags of trail mix (spoiler alert, they didn't last long, i nommed 'em quick!).
See, my thinking was that we would stop at Steve's dad's house in East TN and stay the night there, leave early in the morning. Let me re-state Steve's determination: he was raring to hit the mountain slopes! After what must've been a 3+ hour drive we reached our destination: Newfound Gap.
In fact, i'm not exactly sure how exactly we got there. I think i simply bought a TN map and got us as close to the AT Trail as possible, and at that point we started seeing road signs...and let me tell you, we drove up an incline that seriously kept going up, and up, and up. Our goal was simply to crossover Clingmans Dome during our hike, an elevation of 6,643 ft -- the highest point on the entire AT Trail. At any rate, it was 11:30pm by the time we parked the car, strapped on our packs, and gave our best guess as to which way to start hiking: left or right. We chose right (we weren't sure where left even started). The trail immediately spikes in elevation and we were soon met with dense vegetation. The path was protruded with rocks and stones, and there was hardly a time where that was otherwise on our entire hike. I had brand new trail shoes with added insulation that i had just broken in; Steve, on the other hand, had his toe shoes -- gloves for your feet with minimal padding. Our intent that night was to hike a little and pitch our tents at the first flat open area we could find. There was none. We hiked up and up, carrying 3 flashlights (i had 2: one head light, one in hand) which couldn't seem to illuminate the cool mist we felt, but reflected off our vapors of breath due to the strange mix of temperatures. Other than that, complete darkness.
As good as it felt (feelings of a solid heart keeping with stamina, a sense of eternally being able to hike as if in a never-ending dream, the sensation of my warm body being cooled by the misty air, the deception of not gaining into the darkness yet making progress up the mountain, no hunger or thirst just a perpetual state of rising to the challenge), it was getting late and we needed to set up camp. I was ready to make due with the next small clearing, when suddenly Steve spots a sign. The path forked and the sign stated that Icewater Spring shelter was off to the right. After a bit of searching we found it, and we were loud with excitement! We heard someone shushing us. Apparently the shelter was full of sleeping hikers! Steve and i attempted to quietly set up our tents in the very high grass and with limited light. We made noise in doing so. I felt bad we were disturbing the people in the shelter, but finally, a place to sleep. I think it was past 1:30am and we later learned we had hiked approximately 3 miles, all uphill and in the middle of the night...
DAY 2:
June 12 - June 16 2010
DAY 1:
Steve just arrived at my house yesterday evening. I worked at Lowe's today and if Steve can contain his determination, we would have left for the Appalachian Trail tomorrow. However, i checked up on Steve during my lunch break and he's raring to go and convinces me we should leave NOW for the mountains! I head back to work and after pleading with one of the managers, he finally lets me clock out early.
I hadn't done much packing, if any, and had to gather everything i needed all at once. I packed everything i absolutely needed into a borrowed external frame bag and had room for extra beneficial items; the only thing i lacked was food but it turned out Steve had A LOT of MRE's packed in his car. Still, i had a decent amount of weight on my shoulders. We left my house in the late afternoon and headed East from Nashville. It took longer than expected to get there and decided to make a stop along the way to eat and get gas, and i was able to buy a couple bags of trail mix (spoiler alert, they didn't last long, i nommed 'em quick!).
See, my thinking was that we would stop at Steve's dad's house in East TN and stay the night there, leave early in the morning. Let me re-state Steve's determination: he was raring to hit the mountain slopes! After what must've been a 3+ hour drive we reached our destination: Newfound Gap.
In fact, i'm not exactly sure how exactly we got there. I think i simply bought a TN map and got us as close to the AT Trail as possible, and at that point we started seeing road signs...and let me tell you, we drove up an incline that seriously kept going up, and up, and up. Our goal was simply to crossover Clingmans Dome during our hike, an elevation of 6,643 ft -- the highest point on the entire AT Trail. At any rate, it was 11:30pm by the time we parked the car, strapped on our packs, and gave our best guess as to which way to start hiking: left or right. We chose right (we weren't sure where left even started). The trail immediately spikes in elevation and we were soon met with dense vegetation. The path was protruded with rocks and stones, and there was hardly a time where that was otherwise on our entire hike. I had brand new trail shoes with added insulation that i had just broken in; Steve, on the other hand, had his toe shoes -- gloves for your feet with minimal padding. Our intent that night was to hike a little and pitch our tents at the first flat open area we could find. There was none. We hiked up and up, carrying 3 flashlights (i had 2: one head light, one in hand) which couldn't seem to illuminate the cool mist we felt, but reflected off our vapors of breath due to the strange mix of temperatures. Other than that, complete darkness.
As good as it felt (feelings of a solid heart keeping with stamina, a sense of eternally being able to hike as if in a never-ending dream, the sensation of my warm body being cooled by the misty air, the deception of not gaining into the darkness yet making progress up the mountain, no hunger or thirst just a perpetual state of rising to the challenge), it was getting late and we needed to set up camp. I was ready to make due with the next small clearing, when suddenly Steve spots a sign. The path forked and the sign stated that Icewater Spring shelter was off to the right. After a bit of searching we found it, and we were loud with excitement! We heard someone shushing us. Apparently the shelter was full of sleeping hikers! Steve and i attempted to quietly set up our tents in the very high grass and with limited light. We made noise in doing so. I felt bad we were disturbing the people in the shelter, but finally, a place to sleep. I think it was past 1:30am and we later learned we had hiked approximately 3 miles, all uphill and in the middle of the night...
DAY 2: