Date: 2008-03-29
From: Punchbowl Shelter

To: Stealth spot between Hog Camp and Salt Log
Miles today: 18.0

Saturday, March 29, 2008Punchbowl Shelter to stealth spot, 18 milesGoodbye to Wahoo. Goodbye to the scouts, one of whom has a parting tip for me. Run down hills. Lean back and let your hamstrings do the work.Is that right? I think my quads do the work on downhill runs.Start 7:30 headed north, 30 degrees, streaky clouds basically gray.Hello to 2 parents, daughter and a dog, out for a 6-mile hike to Rte 60.Walk through mature forest. Sign is extra-mature, it's seen younger days.   It reads: The Natural Forest. Virgin areas on the national forests are used to study forests in natural conditions. The study of how trees develop and live helps foresters improve timber and watershed management practices. A measured plot of 4.5 acres around the sign has 120.000 board feet of lumber, enough to build 10 six-room houses. A 300 year chestnut oak is the oldest tree studied, a 157 foot white pine is the tallest and a 40 inch hemlock is the largest.Meet solo hiker with a daypack hiking south.Spicebush. Pennyroyal with a stinkbug on it. Pipsissewa leaves. Gold thread. Clover.Baby dandelion greens which I add to my lunch.Cheerful babbling Brown Mountain Creek with pools large enough for trout.Sign for Brown Mountain Creek Community:As you travel north along the next 1.4 mile section of the Appalachian Trail, watch for the remains of an abandoned community. Freed slaves built and lived in this small farm community in the early 1900¢s. The memories and insights into life on Brown Mountain Creek came from a former resident, Mr Taft Hughes, during an oral interview with the Forest Service.The homes were small and the people hard working. The food was simple but nourishing. Mr Hughes remembered his mother¢s ask cakes, which were cooked on the hearth covered with ashes and coals.¢She would take them out of there and she had a special broom made from corn, broom corn. She¢d sweep them off real good and then would wash them. You didn¢t taste any ashes on them. But they were much sweeter than if you baked them in a stove, much sweeter. We¢d eat them right there and lots of times for supper, we¢d have that and a glass of milk. I wished I had one now. It would be impossible to match that flavor.¢The oral interview was in 1992. In 1999, Mr Hughes died.For more info about Taft and Dora (Black) Hughes, www.nbatc.org/1992Interview.htm, Jodi Barnes, www.atahp.blogspot.com, www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0308/news0308-7.pdfVinca here, from the community, I bet.I come to a very good-looking sturdy bridge which leads to the shelter. Notice on shelter register: As of 1-24-08, Rusty has decided to close Hard Time Hollow indefinatly to all new thru-hikers and section hikers, of the Appalachian Trail This notice is in effect now. Former friends welcome. RustyTrail work and blazing immediately around the shelter is a work in progress.Another sign: Living along Brown Mountain Creek The hills and hollows along the Appalachian Trail hold many secrets that a keen eye and creative imagination can unravel. As you travel south along the next 1.4 mile section of the trail, you can see the remnants of a small farm community along Brown Mountain Creek. It was a unique community in that the inhabitants were freed slaves. Here, living as sharecroppers, they raised tobacco, oats, wheat and corn. Former resident Mr Taft Hughes explained how the sharecroppers paid rent.¢My dad paid a fourth of the crop. If you owned your team, you only paid a fourth, but if you didn¢t own your team and the landlord had to furnish a team, you had to give half of what you made.¢There was a gristmill in the community that ground corn to make cornmeal. The sharecroppers paid Joe Davis, the mill owner, 1/8 of their corn in payment for grinding their corn. This community disbanded in the early 1920¢s when they sold their land to the Forest Bureau.3PM I¢m at Rte 60.On a gravel road between 60 and Bald Knob, I meet local resident, who tells me the story about building the new bridge at Brown Mountain Creek Shelter.¢I watched them build a footbridge on the last one you crossed, Brown Mountain. I guess you probably saw some of the history on the signs there. I was watching them put those foot-rails that hold the bridge, the main supports. They brought them down by hand. It was 4 guys and they brought them down with just plain old hand winches. Put guide wires to pull them across the creek. They¢d poured the base. And the mounting brackets, and everything, was in place. When they brought the first log across with the hand winches, it went within an inch or so of being right in place. Everything was manual. Only they did have power saws down there but that was the only thing they had with power. It was amazing. He just took a little pry bar, nudged it a little bit, and it went right in the socket. It was good to see.¢He tells me you can find out a lot about Taft Hughes online (see above). That Mrs. Dora Hughes is 90+ years old and still lives right near here. That someone swindled Taft Hughes, who was illiterate, out of his land. That Taft thought he was signing a paper to have his land timbered but what he signed was a transfer of the property itself. When he learned what had happened, he said, Well, it¢s God¢s land anyway. I¢m just a steward.He warns me that ticks are out. He looks at my bite. I think you got most of that out, he says. Maybe the head¢s still in there. Not a high percentage of them have Lyme.This man hikes about 5 miles a day, just likes to be walking outside, like me. Says I¢ve got another half hour to the top of Bald Knob.Descend to the trail leading to Cow Camp Shelter. Trail to the shelter is gloomy-looking, plus it¢s 0.6 off the trail. Ahead on one of my favorite mountains, Cold Mtn, is a heavenly-looking light. I head for the light. Will cowboy camp somewhere beyond the summit.6:45 on top of Cold Mtn, which is a bald. The light is spectacular. Great time of day (and place) for photos.I hike past Hog Camp Gap, where Big Earl and I left Dan yesterday morning. 2 hikers have tented in an open area. Beyond that, in the woods, I find a soft bed of dry leaves and shelter from the now-howling wind on the lee side of a large boulder. Not far from the trail, but I¢ll be up and off in the morning before anyone comes by.Stretch out cowboy-style in my sleeping bag, and fall asleep. Goodnight