Day: September 16, 2020

That about sums up the entire day. For this entire trip I’ve been looking forward to having Sherpa rice at the NOC…and I bust my ass to get there for lunch and they closed about 30 minutes before I arrived. They will be closed until tomorrow afternoon. And what was worse was that it wasn’t just the main restaurant that was closed but all of them were closed because they were having some sort of employee meeting. Ice cream and soda from the general store don’t make up for the loss.

I slept in about an extra hour since I disturbed the gentleman I was camping with at the shelter the night before by coming in late. But I made good time packing up and leaving still a little bit before sunrise, although it was hard to tell because there were so many clouds.

I was basically hopping from shelter to shelter stopping for brief periods to drink or snack. The entire strategy of the day was to make the town of Wesser for lunch. The descent was steeper than I had expected so it took me a little bit longer. I was hoping to get there before 2:00 but I got there about 2:30.

I set my pack on the stone wall, took off my shoes and socks and set them in the sun to dry, and then walked down to the river to wash my feet. It took me just a few minutes to buy an extra pair of socks, actually two pairs and an extra shirt since the one I have been wearing is really starting to stink.

I got over to the restaurant about 2:45 and noticed they had a sign on the door that said the restaurant would be closing at 2 and would not reopen until 11:00 the next day. My heart sank. I walked over to the general store and asked which restaurants were open and they told me that none of them were open – they were all closed at the same time. Now my soul has been crushed.

I bought a soda, a beef stick, and an ice cream bar to eat instead of my lunch and bought some M&M’s and another beef stick for hiking out of town. They wanted $100 for a room and after not being able to eat there’s no way I was going to spend $100 on a sleezy room.

So I got out the map, figured out how far it was and what time I would need to leave to hit the shelter. It was 7 miles away and if I left before 4:00 I could probably get there just before dark. So that’s what I did – I left at 4:00.

The climb out of Wesser was not steep but it was very long, nearly all seven miles was up. It was over 5,000 ft of climbing. That’s normally the amount of climbing I do in an entire day, not just an afternoon beginning at 4:00. I tried to make frequent stops to eat and drink to keep my energy up and not waste time and keep climbing. When I was about 2 miles away it was evident that I would get there literally just before dark about a quarter to 8:00.

And my timing was perfect because I did arrive at just about a quarter to 8:00. There were three or four hikers already asleep there and I asked one of them if there were bear cables. He said “no” so there was no point in staying there. I decided to go back to the trail when I saw a good campsite and pitched a hammock and probably got a better night of sleep.

So now I am 21 miles away from Fontana and not sure if I should try to push to get there just before dark or go easy and slide in tomorrow morning. I will probably get an early start, at least leave the first option open and then see how the weather plays out tomorrow. All services in Fontana are supposed to be open but their communications line has been cut so their telephones are down and I can’t call to verify until I get there. Heck I may not even be able to verify it after I get there. I may just have to hitch the 2 mi up to the village from the marina. But that’s a story for another day.

Taking a day off in Franklin ended up being a good call.  The feet are still not in great shape but in the afternoon they started to warm up a bit and make the hiking easier.  Moderate terrain also helped.

I had to wait a little bit for the hostel owner to get rolling, but got off at a decent time.  We stopped by Burger King for some chicken biscuit sandwiches.  One for the car and one for the trail.  The hostel owner was really fun to talk with but it was time to head north again.

I got up trail about 9 am.  It was a cool morning with a gentle breeze and no rain.  The sun was out but the trees kept it filtered.

Within an hour or two I was at Silers Bald, the spot where Karen and I came a few years ago to watch the total solar eclipse.  The place looked the same except the brush had grown up a bit.  I had dry shoes and the weeds looked wet so I did not bother to hike up to the top.

I kept going and stopped for lunch before getting to Wayah Bald.  A quick tuna wrap and some chips.

It took another hour to get to the watch tower but it was a great time to be there.  The visibility was at least thirty miles but clouds were rolling in.  Over the town of Andrews I could see a huge sheet of rain coming.  I had a quick snack and headed on down the trail because I knew that rain was coming for me.

Sure enough about thirty minutes before getting to the shelter it started to rain but not badly.  But by the time I got to the shelter it was coming down hard for over thirty minutes.  About the time it ended, Senor showed up.  He is a thru hiker that shuttled out with me but had to start 3 miles further than where I started.  He is doing about 15 miles in the same amount of time that I am doing 12.  I am not going my full speed yet because of my feet and the terrain today was made for flying.

Senor was totally drenched and decided to stay at that shelter, but it was barely 5 pm and the next shelter was only five more miles.  I decided it was worth it to keep going and get closer to Wesser so I could resupply and leave and not get stuck in another town for a night.  Senor is getting off there to go to a wedding so I won’t see him again until north of the Smokies.

I knew if I left then that my feet would get wet from the vegetation but the same thing would happen in the morning anyway.  So I set off for Cold Spring shelter hoping to arrive with about an hour of daylight and did.  There was a gentleman already there about to go to sleep when I arrived.  I asked if he knew where the bear cables were and he did not know.  I asked where he was storing his food and he said in the corner of the shelter.  That’s no good.  I offered to hang his food with mine and set off to hang the bear rope before it got dark.

I made dinner of spaghetti and pepperoni and tried to eat quietly as he had already fallen asleep and started snoring.  I cleaned quietly and hung the bear bag.  Even setting my gear out did not disturb his sleep and those compactor bags make a lot of noise.
This guy is planning on going through the Smokies, and if he is, he had better get a little bit more bear training.  I hope to be miles ahead of him at all times.

The feet are still super tender, so I decided to spend the night at the hostel again.  I wore my shoes and walked a mile and a half to the only diner open in town on Sunday.  It was an opportunity to try to get some heat into the shoes to dry them out.

Unfortunately, the shoes did not dry.  I stuffed them with newspaper and put them on the air conditioning vent and that helped a little, but they are still wet. I was not able to get any more socks, so I’ll have to venture into the rain tomorrow with my two pairs and pray for some sunshine.  But the forecast looks awful for most of the upcoming week.

But I was able to resupply, so now I have all the food I need to get to Wesser and beyond.

The evening was dominated by fog, the morning and nearly all of the day consumed with rain.  I’ve been soaking wet for about 24 hours.  The forecast is for five more days of rain.

Last night was a miserable night camped high on Standing Indian Mountain.  The site I found was good; I was able to hang a bear bag, and it was breezy.  The problem was that I was in the clouds most of the night.  And clouds mean water… an endless supply of it.

Just after dark, the fog started to roll in and it got ice cold.  I had to get into my bag quickly.  But I soon noticed that the fog was descending on the netting of the hammock and it started dripping down on me. Between the fog blasting the left side of the hammock and wetting everything on that side and the netting dripping down on me, I was soaking wet in no time flat.  After about an hour of that, the coolness turned warm.

It took me several hours to even fall asleep and then it was damp, hot, and sticky.  I probably slept maybe four hours all night.  I woke up at 6:15 and got rolling by 7:00.  I really had my sights set on hitting Franklin now just to dry out.

It wasn’t 15 minutes into the day before the fog turned to rain.  It was light at first, but within 30 minutes my feet were soaking wet.  The entire day was a cycle of thirty minutes of rain followed by an hour of fog.  Nothing dried out.  Especially my feet.

I was basically hopping from shelter to shelter all day to have dry space to make something to eat.  I did not have the time to actually cook so it was all cold food.  I had very little walking snacks left.  Tuna packed in oil with mayo on a tortilla was the highlight.  Oreos and peanut M&Ms rounded out the rest of the day.

By three o’clock my feet were pruned and killing me.  I had no dry socks and even changing socks would last three minutes tops.  It was to be a day of miserable feet for the rest of the day.

At a shelter about six miles out, I found the business card for a local hostel in Franklin and took down the number. When I got to the first peak where I had a signal, I called and made a reservation.  It would be my first day over 20 miles and only possible due to the rain.  Hiking in the rain keeps you cool so you need less water and want to stop less.  But it kills your feet.

I made arrangements to be picked up at the trailhead at 7 pm.  That would give me 15 minutes to spare.  The last 3.5 miles were the hardest of the day because of my feet, but the actual hardest part of the day was going up Albert Mountain.  It’s only a short 0.3 miles but it’s a huge vertical climb and it started raining just after I began my ascent.

I met two brothers earlier in the day and we bounced from shelter to shelter hiding from the rain.  They were parked at the Gap where I was being picked up, so we chatted some more while I waited for the shuttle to arrive.

The hostel is a welcome break from the rain.  I am showered, my clothes are drying, my gear is laid out to dry, and there is a pizza in my belly.  Let’s see what tomorrow brings.