Date: 2006-04-14
From: Muskrat Creek shelter

To: Carter Gap shelter
Miles today: 12.5
Weather: clear sky

Made it! Longest day yet and also saw my tallest mountain yet. Standing Indian mountain is an imposing 5,498 feet tall. Fortunately, the trail up the mountain was well-graded and not at all steep. Just long. The mountain gets its name from a Cherokee story that says a bunch of monsters were meeting on top of it when suddenly a bolt of lightning stuck the top of the mountain and killed them all. An Indian standing sentry nearby was turned to stone at the same time.Unfortunately the "Standing Indian", apparently a natural rock pillar, was long ago carried away by tourists, but the top of the mountain is still clear and offered a tremendous view. I took pictures, of course.I am still within the same group from last night, having hiked here with them. Granted "with" means seeing them in the morning, some at lunch, and then tonight. Dunno how long I'll stay with this group. They're a great bunch of people, but tying yourself to a group too tightly can lead to going out of your way to stay with them. That can lead to hike-ending problems. Then again, so can loneliness and I have no problem admitting that I am very lonely out here. I imagine that I'll stay with the group until they go too far for me to comfortably follow or don't go as far as I want to. I'll probably see a lot of them anyway as they're a creation group rather than a planned group. They're together because they all hike similar distances per day. Tomorrow they plan to hit Rock Gap shelter for another 12-mile day. This puts the city of Franklin and resupply, only 4 miles out the next day.This sounds like a good plan to me, so I imagine I'll be at Rock Gap tomorrow night. I think the next big goal, Nantahala Outdoor Center at mile 133.9 might see the splintering of this little hiker team. "Librarian" at least intends to take a zero there. I do as well, but for very different reasons. The NOL offers some very fine white-water rafting excursions, and I intend to spend a day doing that! Not precisely the sort of zero days that most take, but I'm looking forward to it.I still have not been rained on once. It's kinda jinxing it to say so, I suppose, but it's still highly unusual. Some hikers go through Georgia without ever seeing the sun. It's actually a little disturbing to consider. I think the available water situation this summer is going to be a problem.Also unusual is how warm it is tonight. It's 8:30 p.m. or so and I am lying on top of my sleeping bag. Usually once the sun goes down it gets cold almost immediately. I guess it might be because we're in a different mountain range now. Before we were in the Blue Ridge, but as of this morning, we have been in the Nantalala Mountains. Nantahala means "Land of the noon-day sun" in Cherokee. The Nantahala Mountains are a connector ridgeline. They're taking us from the Blue Ridge to the Smokies. Speaking of the Smokies, they're only 70 miles away now. It's hard to believe I've come 90 miles already. My trail legs are definitely starting to come in. They say they're usually fully acquired by the time you reach the Smokies. I have to remind myself that this does not mean things will get easy. Nothing is really easy out here. But nothing worth doing is easy anyway. Physically I have no doubt that I can finish. Even when I was my most out of shape, I knew I could. It's just a matter of patience until your body adapts.If anything knocks me off the trail, it'll be loneliness. I know that abates after awhile as you get to know all the other hikers, but I'm still very lonely. I doubt I'll leave the trail over it. I'm too stubborn. But I do think I will put my cell phone in my pack when I get my bounce-box at Fontana. Some of these places, especially north of the Smokies, are a lot closer to civilization than the mountains at home, and people have had a lot of luck using their phones.It'd be nice to be able to dial up a friendly voice when I need to hear one. I haven't camped alone since that first night out of Springer just because I need other people around. It's really strange because when I'm back in regular life, I tend to prefer being alone. I think it's because I have way too much time to ponder the Jen situation out here.Anyway, I have a lot of pictures to label before I forget what they are. These journal entries just get longer and longer, don't they?