Date: 2008-03-24
From: Allen Gap

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 53.4
Weather: light rain

I woke up this morning and it was cold, 26 degrees. I only had to pee worst one other time in my life and that day my wife was with me and she couldn't stop laughing she thought it was the funniest thing. I packed up the tent, ate a pop tart and got on the trail. I had to get moving so I could warm up. We stopped at Little Laurel shelter for a real breakfast. I had maple brown sugar oatmeal with carnation's instant breakfast, not as chocolaty as Swiss miss. We were out of there by 1130am and made it to Jerry's cabin shelter by 200pm and had a snack lunch. Here where the funny begins. It¢s been snowing since Little Laurel shelter and there about an inch on the ground by now. We came up on a white blaze that had a speed limit sign on it (10 MPH). I got a picture of me exceeding the speed limit. We head up Big Butt Mtn, yes I'm for real, and we see that the trail has been excavated by a bulldozer. I look for the white blazes but I can¢t find any. I see two other foot prints in the snow. One set is Fester's, he was 5 minute ahead of me because I needed to take a pit stop, and the other set was unknown. So we both assumed this person knew where he was going and by this time the snow was getting heavy. I keep my head down and followed the footprints. When I got to a service road, I knew we weren't on the AT anymore. As I'm walking down the road I hear " Stovie is that you" it was Fester, I said yeah. He said "are you on the trail". I said " No I lost it, where are you ". The road does a switchback and he was down the hill from me but I couldn't see him. So I walk down the road to meet up with him. He had missed the trail just like me and followed the footprints also. Well we keep following the road in hopes that the trail would cross it and we would hop back on, but no such luck. We came to a fork in the road and we could go either north or south, we chose north. We still had hopes of finding the trail but after an hour we realized that finding a main road was are best bet. We walked for 3 hrs, in that time crossed over this stream a half dozen times, each time getting wider and faster. By the last crossing of the stream it was about 30 feet wide and moving at a good pace. Well we decided to take off our shoes and put on our crocs to forge the stream. That water was icy cold. Good for sore feet but it hurt none the less. We put back on our shoe and kept heading down the hill. By now there was hardly any snow on the ground and it was starting to feel warmer. We meet a series of forks in the road, always choosing lower ground. We came upon a logging truck parked in a clearing beside the road. No one was in it and it looked like they were done for the day. It was around 600pm at the time but we knew we must be getting closer to the main road. Finally we see a truck drive by in a distance. Need less to say we were very excited. When we got to the road we see a truck pull out of a driveway. We try to flag him down but he kept on driving. Then we see another truck across the road so we run over and flag them down. We ask for direction and they asked us were we were going. We said Erwin and they said hop in we take you there. There names were Bobby and Sherry and so they drove us to the hotel and waited to make sure there was vacancies, which there was Room 111. Then they asked if they could take us somewhere to eat. Since Fester and I were talking about Sonic Burger, and when I was on Big Butt Mtn I could have sworn I smelled sonic tater tots, we said Sonic. They took us there and I ordered a mess of food and a large sweet tea. When they brought out the food Bobby and Sherry wouldn't take our money. They said they would pay for it and to save our money for the next time we're in town. They drove us back to the hotel and we said thank you again, then went into the room to enjoy our Sonic. Even though we got lost and it was snowing and cold, I wouldn't trade this adventurous day for any day on the trail so for. I had fun and I'm glad I got a chance to do this.Note the mile shows the distant between Allen Gap and Erwin TN. Not the miles we hiked.