Start: Hughes Gap Road (374.1). Stop: Unaka Mountain Top (AT mi 358.1). Today’s miles: 16 miles. Total AT mileage: 1835 miles.
Clearly, I slept like a log last night, seeing how I fell asleep typing out my day. I slept right up to 7:20am, when I got up to start packing. I had everything packed and ready to go before breakfast was served at 8am. It was another incredible breakfast, with the same things from yesterday only with slight variations on the strudel and whatnot. Because of tasting everything yesterday, I was more picky about what I gorged on this morning. It was all indescribably good.. and way too filling.
Afterwards we hung out down by the general store, paid up what we owed for stays and shuttles, and then loaded up into an actual luxury shuttle bus. There were two women going on a section hike in the same direction as us, so 6 of us in total were on the bus-that could have easily seated 20. It was a comfortable ride certainly.
It was a bit nippy when the 4 of us got started. The cool air stayed chilly throughout the day due to cloud coverage. It was mostly solid grey skies with the threat of rain that thankfully never came. The hike ended up being a series of ups and downs over nameless mountains, excluding the named Little Rock Knob and Unaka Mountain. The other six blips were definitely felt though. My calves were burning by the end of the day!
I ate lunch with Lizard at a campsite around noon. The two women that were let out after us started farther south than we did, and this is the spot we met back up with them, as they had stopped to eat their lunch, too. It was nice to chit chat with them.. they’ve been friends since they were 4 years old! They’ve got my Sarah and Lauren beat-the three of us met in 6th grade.. lol
After lunch, Lizard and I hiked mostly together the rest of the afternoon.. chatting about life and whatever random topic decided to pop into our heads. I ended up getting ahead of her when she stopped for a break, meeting back up at the next shelter. It was here that I was at a crossroads. I wanted to stop for the day, my feet were tired. But, that would make a miserable 23+ mile day for me tomorrow. However, to hike to the next campsite would be a water carry up 3 miles of mountain.
Lizard had planned to stay at the shelter. I was attempting to convince myself to stay and just suck it up tomorrow, but the shelter itself wasn’t appealing and we didn’t have service there-so when Lizard said she’d hike on, I was thrilled! Just the motivation I needed to get my butt up that mountain with extra water! I offered to carry one of her liters, since it would even out my pack for me, and I’ve got like 60 pounds on her-so an extra 2 pounds wouldn’t totally kick my ass much more than the other 6 pounds of water I had to tote for myself. It would, however, be noticeably heavier for her. She reluctantly agreed.
We got moving and it was slow going. The switchbacks all but disappeared, although the trail itself is mostly smooth.. it’s just steep in places. Around the half way mark, Lizard paused to wait for me to catch her and then took her liter back! Lol-guilt kicked in, but I honestly didn’t mind toting it.. and she realized soon after, I was still going to be climbing this mountain slowly.. giving up the liter didn’t help improve my pace.
Less than half a mile from the top, I caught up to her sitting on a log at a campsite. I thought this was the top though, and when I felt how windy and cold it was I agreed we should push on. However, when she mentioned we weren’t quite to the top yet anyway, we decided that if the top happened to be winder than here, we’d push just a bit farther going down the other side to another campsite-that at the very least would be as windy as our current location.
The trail seemed to get mossy and magical sometime around here. The trees loomed up overhead, but the forest floor was all pine needles and moss.. soft as clouds. The actual mountaintop was less windy, albeit still very chilly, and so very beautiful, in a spooky, foggy, Halloween is coming kind of way. Roundhouse was already there and set up. He rigged an interesting way to hang his food bag, by an intricate pulley system between 4 trees. Pretty genus. Knowing I probably wouldn’t be able to do that myself, I asked if he’d be willing to hang our food with his.. praying he’d say yes, happy when he did just that.
Lizard and I set up our tents and the three of us ate our dinner around a fire pit. Finch appeared when Roundhouse and Lizard were gathering wood to build a fire. He set up his tent and then joined us for his dinner and the fire starting-followed by fire enjoying. Before we knew it, it was black outside. We could see each other with the help of the fire, but not much else-statues of trees all around, tall overhead, with fog creeping in around them.
We retreated to our tents/hammock close to 8pm. I still had to set up my stuff and filter water for tomorrow. My tent is damp from condensation from last night, which is beyond frustrating-since I swear on everything-David’s tent never did. I never once had drops of condensation inside his tent-never once got wet. Day 2 with my exact same brand and style tent: wet. Honestly it might make me crazy.. but I’m dealing with it. I’m leaving a vestibule on each side open tonight to let the wind help keep the condensation down.
Alright, its 9:30pm, so dark I can’t see a hint of anyone or anything.. and it’s time to tuck these hands inside my sleeping bag and get warm. Goodnight, y’all.