Day eighteen, 18 miles
In the morning, we get a performance. The birds wake up with the dawn, tentative at first, then one after another joins in the chorus as if each is the soloist.
There’s no rain overnight and no BS. Just silence, peace, solitude. Moxie is a very quiet person. She’s also focused, self-assured, and no nonsense, simply doing what needs to be done. I also find she takes things quite literally, so I have to think a bit about what I say before I say it.
We discuss a plan and put it in motion, but there’s not a whole lot of working through how we feel about the plan.
And for me, it’s perfect.
I don’t know many people who can hike as hard as I do, or even have the interest in it. When I mentioned to the young people we were walking to Damascus to get there in time for Trail Days, they were aghast that would require an average of 14 miles per day. To me and Moxie, that’s totally doable.
We’re out of our sweet camp before 7 and right up a big hill. The trail is steep, but a trail of dirt and pine needles, maybe a few rocks.
Nothing like Maine with it’s steep rock faces requiring both hands and a butt to negotiate (the butt, of course, for down) It was very hard hiking whereas this is mostly hard on the heart and lungs.
We get views against gray skies, tinted slightly yellow from a weak sunrise. At the top I begin to hear Northern Peewees for the first time as if whistling at me.
A couple of guys are sitting out at Walnut Mountain Shelter as I bounce down in my bright pink shirt. They must be wondering where the heck we came from and offer a “happy hiking” before we quickly descend to to Kale Gap then right back up again.
Moxie puts me in front pretty much always. She’s not quite as fast on the ups and told me she feels pushed of someone is behind her.
She can fly down where I need to more carefully place my feet to protect the knees. Sometimes she runs ahead, but I think she likes my steady progress that’s never particularly fast, but gets us where we want to go.
The views are of streams of clouds below against wooded mountains. It begins to rain, but it’s so light under the trees, I don’t bother putting on my raincoat.
It’s a long way down this time sidling the mountain. The trillium are just past peak and beginning to wilt while the mountain laurel is on an upswing, the little screwtop-like buds bursting forth into a complex multi-sided white flower and springy Dr. Seussian stamen.
Thankfully for me, the trail is not steep and just kind of bounces along. We’re absolutely silent, lost in our own thoughts. That’s lucky for me too since I prefer hiking alone but having a partner helps with decision making and the general feeling that if she can do it and thinks it’s no problem, so can I.
We break at Garenflo Gap for some food, then move on for a smaller “kiddie” rollercoaster ride into Hot Springs.
And just like that, it begins pouring. I wisely placed my dry-ish tent into the giant garbage bag so I can at least set somewhat dry. But now I gotta keep myself dry.
It’s not cold as the rain pounds on my tightened hood. We meet two girls coming up and give them room as they ascend. When I ask how they’re doing, one smiles and says, “Swell.”
About the size of it.
The trail turns into a slip-n-slide muddy stream almost immediately. At a shelter with three miles left to town, we both look at each other and say, “Keep moving!”
Down and down long switchbacks as the rain pounds us, then to a welcome sign with a tiny roof where we seek cover to reconnoiter.
The AT passes right through the small mountain town of Hot Springs, using the sidewalk as trail with the official marker imprinted every few feet like Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
We duck into Smoky Mountain Diner for a big lunch. The A/C is cranked which helps dry our gear and ourselves.
It’s another 70 miles to Erwin and we both need some more food and I have to get more cooking gas, so visit Bluff Mountain Outfitter.
Wayne’s owned the place for a few decades and helps me adjust my waist belt. I get skinnier as I hike, but when I step on his scale, I weigh exactly the same as when I left, which is a good thing.
Twice in the last few days, I’ve heard of people having gear stolen in hostels. I’m leery of leaving my pack outside (which is the polite thing to do) and they let me set it inside, even wet and muddy.
The stories about grizzly murders on the trail are well known – which may be another good reason to be hiking with Moxie – but numerous other activities leave me troubled.
Like a father and daughter who defaced not only shelters, but rocks and trees with their trail names all the way from Georgia to Maine. He was only contrite after being caught and fined, not once stopping the destruction even when other hikers asked him to.
What a great example he’s setting for his offspring.
Or someone putting out dog treats stuffed with fish hooks along the trail at Lehigh Gap in Pennsylvania. Apparently all have been retrieved but what kind of sick person does such a thing?
As we leave town and cross the French Broad River, the clouds clear and the sun comes out to reveal the mountains we just walked over. It’s a steep climb out of the valley with fantastic views including to a large solar farm which I suspect powers all of this small town.
We feel good and want to gain more mileage even as the heat enervates us. Not entirely sure where to camp, we stop at a spring to fill up. The water has carved out a kind of mini cave where water drips enough to fill a liter in less than a minute. Inside, doing about the same thing as the bottle, is a wriggle brown salamander, unafraid of us.
It’s been a long day and just ahead is a small stealth site which we decide to take – right about the time the sky turns black.
We set quickly as thunder rumbles. But we’re able to sit out for a long while and semi-dry my clothes. It’s lovely on this small peninsula. Not entirely open to views, but enough to see the mountains and the changing sky.
At the first drops we dive in our tents. The light flashes and thunder follows, deep, deafening, long. The rain pounds on the tent, bouncing off the ground to make small mud dots along the doors.
The thunder gets wilder and scarier, all around us. So far it appears to be striking only inside the clouds, but we continue to yell to each over the din, asking if the other is ok. “Yes, just scared!”
It takes about an hour to move on, the rain finally tapering to nothing, just drops from the splatting on the tent. The birds immediately begin singing – a mourning dove, a sizzly blue gray gnat catcher, the bel canto carolina wren, a sassy hooded warbler, and a buzzy black throated green warbler.
It’s repetitive for sure, but oh, so comforting that the storm is past.
And yet, that storm was the mild one. Another is heading our way and expected after dark, which I find even more terrifying.
We’ve battened down the tents and looked for widow makers, but all we can do now is wait – and hope.
One insistent whippoorwill repeats his name over and over, losing time, pausing, then rediscovering his groove. He keeps at it when the thunder revs up again and a fan of rain douses the tent.
But ole whippy must know things aren’t going to get that bad because he keeps singing. Maybe not, I think, as I start to fade from another great day of hiking.
