Date: 2003-05-19
From: Overmountain Shelter

To: Newland, NC
Miles today: 8.7

(Craig Says)We're in Newland, NC now...the Christmas Tree Capital of the World! Everywhere you can see neat rows of Fraser Firs in various stages of growth. Some people even have gardens on their front lawn. Who knew?Everything was drenched this morning at Overmountain Shelter. Wetter than our stuff has ever been. The tent, our clothes, sleeping bag, the food bag, the food itself, shoes,....everything. The clouds blew in beneath the rain fly and gave us a delicate mist shower all night. But we knew we were heading to a town so we just stuffed everything in our bags and headed out. The coffee was down to the last pinch in the ziplock so we had to suffer with just an eight ounce cup instead of the usuall twenty. I know, life is hard sometimes....And of course we had poptarts for breakfast, but that doesn't really need to be mentioned because as of today we've had poptarts for every single breakfast on the trail. And we're still not tired of them. As a matter of fact I just picked up a box of grape frosted which I didn't know existed. Anyway, the hike. We immediately started sweating, climbing through the wet shin-high grass and thick clouds up the small but steep Little Hump Bald. Next was Hump Bald (5500) a longer and even steeper ascent which brought us completely out of the fog and presented a beautiful sprawling view of TN, NC, and Roan Mt. To our east, where the cloud cover was slowly creeping its way over the ridges and down the ravines into other shaded valleys, you could see some of the taller peaks sticking out like sharp black islands in a sea of boiling white. A herd of eight or ten (Texas Longhorn?) cattle roamed freely about on the bald. The trail passed through a wooden gate that made a giant rectangle around the grass and right through the herd. I rubbed my eyes a few times to make sure the trail did what it did. We weren't sure we wanted to go through the herd. They all had HUGE horns. Like a big white boney staple on top of a skull the size of an airconditioner. We walked by slowly and talked to them real nice. Whether or not they were just being rude and ignoring us or if they just didn't speak english we're still not sure but they milled about chewing cud just as they had before we came through. Erin snapped a few photos of me by a bull (steer?) that was particularly close to the trail then moved on.We moved in and out of the clouds a few more times before coming to Doll Flats. Erin was singing an old Hole lyric all day. "I am....Doll Flats" Most people probably won't get that one. Just before Doll Flats, when I was going down the mountain in the zone you only get in when you're approaching a town, I was startled by a cow who appeared out of the leaves and let out a labored moan. It was roaming around in the forest on the slopeside of the trail. Not in a field but on the side of the mountain, in the vines and trees and thick stuff. Before I saw it I'd heard it and thought it was a bear or a huge deer. I could tell by the crunching of the twigs that it was big. And I think the fact that it was a cow startled me even more. I don't think of cows as something one would come across hiking around in the forest. I guess maybe it was slightly less startling because of the steer at the bald, but that was out in the open on the grass. I thought maybe it had been separated from the herd and gotten lost. Right after I saw the cow, I heard another mooing elsewhere in the woods. About ten minutes later I began to see a barbed wire run parallel to the trail before the trees gave way to a large field with a small white farm house tucked down in the valley below and an entire slope peppered in rows of infant christmas trees. It all made sense now. When we arrived at the gap we found a sign on a rock stating that the motel we had planned to stay at was closed, but the Shady Lawn Motel in Newland, NC was open. The sign stated it was close to a mc donalds, a library with internet, a post office, and that they'd come and shuttle you for free to the place and back. So we hitched to Roan, TN three and half miles to the east to pick up some things at the post office. (The guy who dropped us off told us we looked like good folk and asked us if we went to church) Then called the original 'times square motel' to make sure this guy wasn't pulling a fast one. Turns out he wasn't and the sign was true to its word and thirty minutes later we were checked in at Newland instead of Elk Park where we had originally planned to stay. Good thing too because we passed through elk park to get to newland and it looked like the only thing Elk Park had to offer was mounds of dirt and closed auto shops. Herb Maniette, the manager and the shuttler was a great guy. Real laid back. He told us where to go to eat, where the atm was, the library, post office, grocery store, and even stopped for anyone - (we were with two other hikers who were about an hour behind us and we'd picked up along the way. It was a woman and her father. She was fifty and he was seventy three! Hiking ten to fifteen miles a day!)He even offered to stop to get beers for anyone who wanted them before we entered Avery county which is dry. Erin and I both said, "We do!" simultaneously and got a six pack to share and ease the feet. I recommend The Shady Lawn to anyone else coming through. It's only forty two bucks total for the night, laundry is free, and everything is close by. When we got there we pulled everything out of our packs. The tent gets hung up in front of the window, bear bags hang off door knobs, personal belongings are spread out on every flat surface in the room. It's become a ritual when we get to town. Then I usually get to shower first because erin's take twice as long because her hair is so thick it takes twenty minutes just for the soap to trickle down to her scalp. After we (erin) did laundry, we got a bite to eat at The Shady Lawn Resteraunt a stone's throw away. We were starving! The last real meal we ate was the noodle with chicken two nights ago. So we each had hamburger steaks with grilled onion, pepper, and mushroom, baked potato, bread, salad bar, and cherrywine (a type of cherry soda that I've only seen down here. Its real sweet and good). Then we went back to the hotel, settled down, had a few beers, and watched the top fifty women of the video era on VH1. Life is good.