Date: 2017-03-27
From: Standing Bear Hostel, TN

To: Roaring Fork Shelter, NC
Miles today: 15.2

Day 20: Standing Bear Hostel, TN to Roaring Fork Shelter, NC - 15.2 miles:I finally fell asleep in the early AM after finishing For Love of the Game. I would do the usual overnight shuffle, but sleep would find me. Toepick was up and out by 7am, heading an hour back to Gatlinburg to pick up a hiker wanting to go to Standing Bear Hostel she had promised a ride. I was up and moving by 7:30am, hanging out with Odin as I slowly repacked my gear, and was nearly packed when they returned just before 9am. Once we were ready we headed to the nearby McDonald's so I could get a breakfast sandwich after skipping dinner last night. A bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit with a Coke never tasted so good. Toepick downed a yogurt and breakfast burrito, and then we were zipping eastward along I-40, back into the mountains.We returned to Standing Bear Hostel around 10am where Toepick dropped Odin and I off before she headed back to Newport to detail her rental car, removing a ton of Odin's hair, so she wouldn't be charged extra for the cleaning fee. In what would take nearly two hours to complete and return, I hung out at the hostel with Odin, chatting with hikers, enjoying a couple more chilled Coke's, and overall just keeping Odin out of trouble. He continued his quest to score free food from hikers, but the process seems to be gradually becoming more difficult as the hiker hunger takes control of hikers and they're less likely to toss him something. He also seemed determined to catch a rooster and chicken that occasionally appeared from the bushes surrounding the central hub area of the hostel. I weighed myself and realized I had put on five pounds of the eleven I've lost so far in the 24 hours since I'd last been there. It won't last long though.I chatted off and on with Mama Bear, Little Foot, and Double Barrel. At one point Mama Bear asked Double Barrel to watch Little Foot as she went off to work on resupplying and repacking their gear. Within minutes Little Foot was in a small Creek that runs through the center of the hostel, boots and all, throwing and retrieving a pink soccer ball, and would eventually prolong their set-off time due to having to wait for them to dry. Double Barrel joked that his mother would never trust him to watch her son again. Half of the hikers set off towards the trail around 10:30am while the other half settled in to enjoy the day off. After having to wait around for so long, I was tempted to stay myself in order to avoid having to push hard with a half day, but knew it was just my feet talking. Just before noon Toepick arrived, we prepped our gear, and off we were, beginning with a four-and-a-half mile climb out of the hostel.The going was slow and steady, me falling in behind Toepick and Odin, who quickly seemed to shake off his limp by running up and down the trail, quickly tiring himself in the heat of the early afternoon. We reached Painter Branch, a small campsite next to a calm-flowing creek, halfway up the climb where Toepick needed to stop for water. She found a bottle of moonshine sitting near the water. We initially had no interest in it, but then reconsidered. It seems to make sense that it's bad luck to turn down trail magic, whether it's a Coke, a burger, a ride, or moonshine. We both took two shots, the clear liquid burning as it traveled down our throats, instantly causing our body temps to rise. I juggled the idea of enjoying a few more sips to take the edge off today's hike, but reconsidered when I thought about the possibility of losing my clothes and partaking in National Hike Naked Day three months too early.Within the next mile it began to lightly rain as the skies turned grey with clouds, and the surrounding mountains fell behind curtains of distant rain. Fortunately it wasn't heavy rain, but instead the kid that helps to cool you off as you hike. Toepick soon stopped again for her and Odin's water break, my only fluid intake being the moonshine, and I decided I was gonna go at my pace for the day. Having been off the last several days, it may take a bit for their six hiking legs to return. At 2pm, as Odin made his way back towards Toepick after initially trying to keep up with me, I turned and was gone. Half an hour later I reached the summit of Snowbird Mountain. A strange, alien spaceship-like building, in actuality an FFA tower, sits atop the summit and has several signs warning prosecution in a federal court of law if you do X, Y, or Z within the small fence that surrounds the building. I walked around he perimeter of the fence, instead taking in the 360-degree view of near and distant mountains alike, shrouded in the grey veils of rain. Looking back towards the Smokies, I could tell it wouldn't have been an enjoyable day there. As I looked towards Max Patch, where Toepick, Odin, and I lounged in the sun the previous afternoon, I was glad to know we had gone early as the day ahead didn't look very promising.As I headed down the north side of Snowbird I hit a groove, averaging 3mph, and would maintain it the remainder of the afternoon. An hour later I lowered into Deep Gap where I breaked for lunch. Another hiker I didn't know sat just off the trail with the same idea, quietly eating, reading, and letting his dogs air out. After quickly stuffing jerky, chocolate, and nutri grain bars into my mouth, I was up and gone in 20 minutes. With six miles left to go until Max Patch, I powered my way up and down several smaller mountains, Max Patch seeming to always slip behind the next one, hiding from me. I eventually began passing hikers that had left an hour and a half or more before me this morning. As they slowly chugged their way up the mountains, I cruised by knowing I wasn't planning on stopping until atop Max Patch.At 5pm, I finally crested the summit, having followed a series of wooden posts, a white blaze on each, winding me up and around to the summit. I reached the top just in time to catch a local man chatting with a hiker, Pilgrim, and warning him about staying on the summit. Although the evening had returned to being pleasant, the summit now bathed in evening sun peering through the clouds, weather is supposedly in the forecast overnight. I considered the idea of staying in the bald expanse myself, enjoying both an unobscured sunset and sunrise, but with rain possibly coming, it'd be one of the last places I'd want to be caught. With the next shelter only two miles away, as well as lower in elevation, I knew hiking as hard as I did to end up short of 15 miles would seem like a disappointment to me. Down I went, back into the treeline, to cover the final two easy miles into Roaring Fork Shelter.At 6:15pm I reached the shelter, already full with the other hikers who left Standing Bear Hostel earlier in the morning, and who I didn't have the chance to catch. I was fortunate enough to score a perfectly flat earthen tent platform, but will end up wet if or when it rains tonight. Can't win them all, but it's important to be appreciative of what you do have. Several of the hikers I passed stumbled in over an hour later, and will be pitching their tents on the remaining unlevel, slanted ground.I once again have no signal at this location so I'll have to wait and find a high point tomorrow before posting. My goal tomorrow will either be another ~15 miles to a shelter just outside of Hot Springs, NC, or push it ~18 miles into town. I would still find a place to camp, avoiding having to pay to stay somewhere again, but the thought of access to a Coke or real meal might be enough motivation to get me there. Regardless of where I end up, the terrain brings two back-to-back ~1,000ft climbs, before gradually descending towards town.It's 8:15pm as I'm wrapping this up. My feet are sore, my leg is still bothersome, and several dogs - hounds, perhaps - are annoyingly barking from some distant place. However, the camp is quiet, I have a shelter over my head and water readily available, and I'm 15 miles ahead of where I was this morning. Onward.