Day 9: 9 miles hiked (trail mile 78.2)
We had a restful night at Hostel Around the Bend and this morning I had a much-needed hot shower. I rifled through the Hiker Box, a bin of gear and food discarded by hikers that every hostel and outfitter supposedly have. Chris tells me the contents usually consist of repackaged food in Ziploc bags that no one wants to touch. Sure enough, that was the case, besides a couple heavy or well-loved pieces of gear. Still fun to look!
We hopped on the next shuttle back to the trail and ran into One Shot and Princess Bella. Some other hikers we’ve ran into a couple times—including a solo-hiker girl we met on day 0 and a group of young guys—were also there receiving trail magic from the same family that fed us yesterday evening. We had a lovely hike with some of the best weather we’ve had on trail.
We stopped at Plum Orchard Gap shelter for lunch and ran into Dr Who again! What an interesting fellow. He is an experienced thruhiker with many stories; he lives his life bouncing between contract jobs as a nuclear safety compliance advisor and thruhikes. At a sturdy 3-stories tall, the shelter was the coolest we’ve seen yet. It was built offsite and airdropped into place by the fifth army ranger battalion. We considered staying in the shelter, but we were feeling good, and it was still early, so decided to go ahead and cross into North Carolina!
We made it to Bly Gap Campground just past the state line. It is extremely windy, but we found a somewhat shielded site to pitch our tent, ate a cold dinner and hung our bear bag, which went well this time! We suspended the bag from a branch on an old, gnarled tree very near the trail. We will wake up early to take it down since this tree is noted as “often photographed gnarled tree” in our trail guide and our blue food bag might detract.
We are getting acclimated to the trail. We feel our trail legs developing, as well as our appetites. Each day we become more efficient at setting up and breaking down camp. We go to sleep by 8pm and usually wake up around 6am when the sun comes up. We are beginning to get a sense of who is around us day after day, hiking at a similar pace to us. Our gear has been tested and proven effective in different weather conditions— from high wind to freezing temperatures to rain—which gives us confidence for the next stretch of our hike.
Day 10: 7.7 miles hiked (trail mile 85.9)
We awoke to discover that a hiker named Midnight had set up his tent by the gnarled tree after we had already gone to bed. Midnight was a great character with an infectious enthusiasm for the trail. He is a well-traveled musician from New Orleans, who told us about other European long distance trails. We learned from him there is a cluster of hikers only a few days behind us, strengthened in number by the people who postponed their start date because of those few days of rain we endured.
People call the huge numbers of hikers that start in March and April by many names: the herd, the bubble, etc. Chris calls it the stampede. There can be upwards of fifty people starting per day during this period, as opposed to our 20 or so. From what I’ve heard and read, these numbers fall significantly only a week or two into the trail as many drop out because of injury, being ill prepared, or simply not finding the trail to their expectations. Staying ahead of the herd was one of the reasons we chose to start our hike a week earlier and we are glad that we still find solitude on the trail.
During our hike this morning we heard our first grouse! They flap their wings in a hollow log and create a loud thumping that resonates throughout the forest like helicopter blades or a motorcycle engine. Chris recounted that on his AT thruhike in his early twenties he was bewildered by this recurring noise, believing that there were just motorcyclists everywhere, just out of sight. We also saw our first flowers, with tiny little purple petals, growing in the middle of the trail. We are very excited to witness the emergence of spring on the trail.
When we passed Chunky Gal trail (what a name) we noticed a plume of smoke on the horizon in the direction we were hiking. Eventually we were walking through a smokey haze. Chris called the national forest service to make sure there weren’t any trail closures we needed to be aware of but they assured us that it was a prescribed burn, and we hiked on.
We hiked to Standing Indian shelter where we ran into Scott, who we last saw at Hostel Around the Bend, sitting by a campfire. Unable to pass up our first campfire opportunity on the trail, we decided to call it a night and pitched our tent in the woods near the shelter. Scott is a young guy who is hiking the trail until he starts work at a fishery in Alaska; he is trying to decide whether to do the thruhike or take the work opportunity. We hung out around the fire until it grew dark and the temperatures began to plummet.
Chris managed to hang the bear bag PCT style, using a small stick in substitution of the second carabiner! It is nice to know we will be able to use this method when we’re down to only 2 or 3 days of food and the bags are lighter.
Days 11: 16.5 miles hiked (trail mile 102.4)
We stirred at 6am. Since temperatures were in the upper twenties, and we knew we needed to do some good mileage today, we decided to go ahead and pack up and hit the trail. Out of camp by 7:30, our fastest break-down yet. I love the feeling of hiking in the freezing cold and gradually feeling the warmth creep back into fingers and toes after moving for a while. It is easy to keep moving and cover more miles on extra cold days because if we stop for more than a couple minutes at a time, we start to catch a chill.
Today was smooth walking for the most part. First thing in the morning we climbed a ridge and walked for about a mile with incredible views on either side. The terrain was the flattest we’ve experienced so far, and we decided to try to make it past the 100-mile mark and position ourselves so that tomorrow we would only have a few miles until Franklin, NC, another resupply point.
We stopped for lunch at an overlook point with an amazing view of the valley and surrounding mountains. On the overlook we called a hostel in Franklin and booked a room for the next day. Driven by the promise of laundry facilities, showers, and a bed, we pushed for Long Branch shelter, only 7 miles from where we will catch our shuttle to Franklin tomorrow.
Just before Long Branch we summitted Albert Mountain. The initial ascent of the mountain was a beautiful hike; moss dripped all around us, intricate root systems wove across the trail, and at times we walked along a path cut into a cliff face with a view out over the valley. The top of the mountain was a very steep ascent, flanked by rhododendrons and scrambling up boulders.
At the top, we were granted a 360° view of the mountain ranges all around us. We climbed the old fire tower that, last operated in 1989, for a better look. A wayside marker told us that the land visible from the tower is a part of a long-term ecological research project looking at best forestry practices.
On our way down the other side of the mountain, we passed the official 100 mile point (!) which someone had marked with a handmade “100” out of broken sticks. We eventually made it to Long Branch shelter, where we set up camp and hung the bear bag. I accidentally left our temporary stick tent pole back at Standing Indian shelter on accident so carved up a new one for tonight.
Chris demonstrates how effectively a bear bag keeps bears out of our food!
We are the only ones at this shelter tonight, which is weirdly much creepier than stealth camping alone. It is supposed to get into the teens tonight so others (self-proclaimed fair-weather hikers or people who are so ultralight that they push safety limits with their sleep systems) must have made a big push for town. Thankfully we are prepared with our 0 degree quilts, although in hindsight I wish I’d gotten a ten degree quilt. Last night it was in the 20’s and we were still sweating.
16.5 miles covered today! Our longest day yet and we still feel good! Now that we have passed 100 miles (the distance of the Lonestar Trail in Texas) this is also the furthest we have ever thru-hiked together. Looking forward to Franklin tomorrow.
Day 12: 7 miles hiked (trail mile 109.4)
With the temperature inside the tent hovering around 20° we struggled to motivate to get out of our quilts this morning. At 7:30 we finally decided to get moving and break down camp. We heated up some instant oatmeal and scarfed that down for some fleeting warmth as the titanium pot formed ice crystals before our eyes. All packed and bundled up, we headed out for a short 7-mile day to Winding Stair Gap where our hostel shuttle would pick us up.
We kept noticing clusters of ice crystals in fragile, stringy formations along the sides of the trail where soil had been disturbed, and later learned that this is called “needle ice”. We ran into MacGyver and Crew. They told us they had camped on top of Albert Mountain! Since temperatures were in the low teens overnight for us it must have been very cold on the mountain top.
I chose my trail name today! Every hiker gets a trail name eventually, whether self-appointed or named by others on the trail. Often the name indicates something silly that happened or something that a hiker has become known for on the trail. I’ve been hiking for days with various large sticks poking out of my backpack that I’ve whittled to make a substitute top tent pole. Many a hiker has stopped us to ask about it, and thus I’ve become “Sticks” on the trail. Chris is holding out to see what name he is given.
We hiked with single-track minds and reached our pickup location just after noon. Gooder Grove Hostel offers complimentary shuttle service and Nomad was there to pick us up. He hiked the trail last year, same as Bear from our last hostel. When we saw it, we immediately knew we would enjoy our stay at Gooder Grove. It has cool hostel/co-op vibes, complete with prayer flags, colorful knick-knacks, and all the trappings of a home. We dropped our things in our private room, enjoyed a short soak in the tub, got showered, did laundry, and walked to town. We later learned the place has a very mixed reputation, but we had a perfectly decent stay and had no complaints.
Franklin is a charming little town with a lot to offer, including a climbing gym, a handful of bakeries, a gem museum, a brewery, a couple outfitters and a skate park! We had dinner at a food truck outside the Lazy Hiker brewery, and Chris had a flight of beer. After that we resupplied at Ingles where we ran into a handful of other hikers there, including Spots and Snapshot and Bug (who we met on the approach trail) and then walked back to the hostel for the night.