Date: 2008-01-06
From: McDuff Memorial Shelter

To: Franklin
Miles today: 10.8
Weather: broken clouds

I had a disturbed night for no particular reason. I kept thinking that there were others (or at least one) in the shelter and I was concerned about waking them. At some time in the night it started raining. This is just what I had been wanting as the rain would melt the snow hanging around in shady areas. Again, I awake at the "gentlemans hour" of 4:20 a.m. and again I procrastinated. To lie there fretting about wasting time or get up and end up leaving well before dawn; which I did not want to do as I did not have far to go that day and it was still raining lightly and mist was drifting around. There was no question really; I got up. There had not been a freeze over-night and the temperature was an acceptable 3oC (37.4oF) so my previous concerns did not eventuate. I could delay departure no longer, so by 6:30 a.m. I was underway. The trail was clear and easy to follow and I was soon on Wayah Bald at 1610m. There is a stone lookout tower there but there was little point climbing it as it was dark, very misty and there were heavy clouds over the hills. After a round of hunt-the-blaze game, I scored a point and headed off down the trail. The weather did not know what to do - rain or not, be cold or not, and nor could the snow decide whether to be there or not so I had a frustrating hour of on-again - off-again with my parka and yaktrax. Without any major hills to climb (only 664m of climbing) and the snow mostly gone, travel was easy. What I can't understand is how come my speed was so variable. In the Smokies, we were walking at 4 km/hr uphill, and south of Newfound Gap (which included some major climbing) I did 43 kms at 4.8 kms/hr, but here I struggled to do 3.2 kms/hr uphill and 4.3 kms/hr downhill. We have noticed this right from the beginning. It is like each trail-maintaining club has their own definition of a mile. Others on the trail relate readily to the concept of short miles and long miles so we are not the first to notice the phenomenon.By sometime before mid-day I was at Winding Star Gap and the road to Franklin. There was very little traffic on this road and I wondered if I would get a ride at all. But something like the 10th vehicle to come past stopped and picked me up and deposited me outside the Sapphire Inn where Susan has been staying.Now fingers crossed that Susan will be fully mobile tomorrow. I am finding difficulty getting to grips with how hungry I am most of the time. I am carrying about 1.1 kg of food per day which equates to about 4,500 - 5,000 calories; yet I am hungry from around 10:00 a.m. right through to dinner. How much do I really need to hike this trail?Susan in Franklin at the Sapphire Inn: boring, boring, bored, bored. I was interested to see in Coffee's journal that he has had an ankle injury too. He got approximately 30 miles further than I did before he injured his. I wonder how he is doing and whether we will ever get to meet him. I will be moving a bit more slowly than before, so maybe he will catch up.Our transcriber, Lipstick (Cathy) has completed this section of the trail from this tower south. Photo of her when she was there 9/11/2007, a clear beautiful day.Lipstick here, since David did not get a chance to see the view from Wayah Bald, I'm posting my view that I took in September. I only hiked 10 miles that day, last 3 miles in the rain, almost running with threat of thunder.Photo by The Unknown Hiker