Date: 2004-04-27
From: Overmountain Shelter

To: 3.9 miles north of 19E to Roan Mountain
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: light rain

A glorious day -- clouds zooming west to east with winds nearly strong enough to knock me down. Climbed Little Hump and Big Hump Mountains -- both golden balds that we had seen from the red barn, lit up by the sun yesterday afternoon -- within two hours. Half expected Macbeth's three witches to appear from behind a craggy rock outcropping. With Dave the Sailor ahead, and Crash!Bang! and Grizzly Dave behind, spread out and unable to hear each other above the wind, it looked like an expedition to Everest. We'd stop, lean on our poles, look up ahead and down behind at each other's progress. Very dramatic scenery. At the top were among the most spectacular views of the trail so far -- worth returning to for their magnificence, and for the view of that now distant barn shelter far below on a hillside.From there it was 5 miles downhill to Roan Mountain town, though if I'd opened up my margarita-green pack cover atop Big Hump, I probably could have parasailed into town. Just on the other side of the summit was a stile into a field where ten or so long horn cattle (Watusi?) were seated on the ground, legs folded neatly under them. Some had rings in their noses; a few calves lay, protected, at the far side of the steers. We walked past them without incident -- they seemed inured to the presence of thru-hikers -- though from the movement of their heads it was clear that we were being carefully surveilled for any sudden, threatening movements.The Apple House Shelter, half a mile from 19E, was 4-walled, dark and dusty -- uninviting. To boot, someone had written in 3-foot-high letters on the sides and front: "Haunted", "Listen -- Do Not Talk." Made me imagine that the local high school students probably used this area to irritate sleepy hikers with "Blair Witch Project" antics at night. Posted warnings of vandals at the trail's intersection with the road didn't do much to impress me with the local hospitality.However, I quickly hitched a ride into town to the post office -- from a local man who did a Starsky-and-Hutch handbrake stop beside the road, leaving 7-foot skidmarks. The postmaster was cheerful and friendly, as was everyone else I met. A lady with an aluminum walker handed me a peanut bar from her car -- "It's good for you!" -- as she saw me repacking my foodbag outside the post office, in the whipping wind. Several people stopped to give me the weather report: "Gonna freeze tonight. Got enough clothes?" Fred, a bearded gent in a beat-up station wagon, gave me and Tree Frog a lift to Grays Brothers building supply to buy some more denatured alcohol for our stoves. And while Tree Frog made phone calls, I sat whittling a walking stick in the parking lot and one of the store's patrons leaned out of his pickup truck cabin to hand me a bamboo cane: "Here's you a better walking stick," he grinned and drove off.Tree Frog and I then got a lift from a local schoolteacher -- Melanie, with daughter Laurel -- back to the trail head. She actually turned around to give us a ride, and had us sign her own "trail ride register" which she had all hikers sign to whom she gives rides. She had done some hiking herself, but after an accident was unable to carry a pack, so she and her husband use their llamas to carry their packs!Not long after Tree Frog and I had started back on the trail, we came across a father and son, the Norrises from Mississippi, who had just spent two hours of their hiking vacation picking up trash at a road intersection -- there seems to be a lot of that in Tennessee, unfortunately. They must have collected 20 bags full of dog food cans, beer bottles, you name it, out of sheer civic mindedness. ("We get enough bad press in Mississippi," said Norris senior.) They asked me to take their picture, then I helped them load the bags into their truck. Trail Angels come in all forms!Tree Frog and I moved up the trail -- beautiful rolling green fields with apple trees blossoming, brooks running through them, pine forests surrounding. We crossed several roads, past homes, a country Baptist church, before feeling we were back in the wilderness. By 7:30, I reached Jones Falls -- lovely spot -- filled my Nalgene with water, and started looking for a campsite. Found one big enough for my tent and Tree Frog's rain cloth, on a bed of dry leaves inside a bend in the trail. I didn't feel awake enough to cook, so had a Power Bar, read my mail -- thanks for the letters and cards! -- started writing a letter, then crashed.Slept like a baby for nearly 10 hours. The quarter moon was so bright that I could see the shadows of rhododendron leaves on my tent.