Date: 2013-05-06
From: Hot Springs, NC

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 33.0
Weather: light rain

We left Hot Springs pretty late the next day, trying to live it up in the Octagon as long as humanly possible. We traveled along the French Broad for a short period of time. It was super high. The drop off ledge that is before the take-out was completely covered. Just a big hole on river right and completely flat the rest of the way across the river. We made the climb up to lover's leap rock, and saw that we could see views of the Octagon House from above, as I got excited and went to take a picture, my ankle collapsed on me (for the millionth time,) and I hit my other knee on the way down. Definitely the worst fall I've taken yet. We cut the day a little shorter and decided to make it the 8 miles to the firetower at Rich Mountain. The guys were a little in front of Baby Steps and I. We saw a sign that marked that ahead and up was the firetower, and then the trail turned to the left where the water source was. We also saw some tents in that direction and assumed that was the campsite and that the guys were at the firetower looking at the views and then they would come down. Not so. There was another campsite up there. We had started to set up our stuff and then we realized that they weren't coming down there. So, we headed up that way. When we got up there we saw Rich and assumed Ali was in his tent. Finally Rich asked where Ali was. Apparently he had backtracked down the mountain thinking we had taken a wrong turn or that I had hurt myself again. When we showed up Rich assumed that he had found us. Rich set off in search of Ali and they eventually turned back up. I threw some ramen in their pot for them while they were gone, but it was the wrong one. Oops. The next day we did a pretty good trek to Jones Meadow campsite. It was so hot. Blazing hot. and we had to climb this enormous mountain up to Blackstack Cliffs. It was ridiculous. The meadow was nice to camp at, but we were all pretty pooped. We left the next morning thinking it was a pretty easy day by looking at the elevation profile, but it ended up being pretty time consuming, and once again blazing hot. We were on the ridgeline climbing big rocks with no shade. After that though it was pretty easy, it became a road for about two miles that we just meandered down. We made it right before Devils Fork Gap that night and camped out by ourselves once again. We heard dogs and gunshots that night. I was quickly running out of food, so when we got to Sam's Gap the next day we got a ride from 10-K a former thru-hiker that lives in Erwin down to the Market (a gas station.) We tried to make it to the cafe down the road right after but they closed the place early and wouldn't serve us. So, back up to the gap we go, but without the burger that we had been salivating over all day. We did 10 miles before 1 o'clock that day dreaming about this cafe. We then somehow managed another ride to the market from two section hikers that were very nice so that we could use the bathroom since we thought we would be able to use the one at the cafe. We hiked four more miles after that to Low Gap campsite and camped with Sawyer and Dreamcatcher that night, they are German. We somehow managed to get the Brits bear bag line stuck three different ways in the tree with two rocks on either end of the rope. It was hilarious. We ended up hiking 17 miles the next day making it just 3.6 miles to Erwin, TN. My grandmother, awesome lady that she is, got us a hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express for two nights with her rewards points and she sent me a package! I love getting packages! We got a ride from Miss Janet that night and went to Los Jalapenos for a Cinco de Mayo celebration and sat with about 10 other hikers and had such a great time. She gave us a ride back to the hotel and then the next day we pretty much spent sitting around until we went to resupply at the Dollar Store and eat at the KFC buffet AYCE. It was hands down the nicest KFC I have ever been in in my life. Still Matt went with us, pretty funny guy, lots of dry humor. The people at the holiday inn are extremely helpful and really nice, there were tons of other hikers that stayed the night here. We will be heading out in the morning, should take about three days for us to get to Roan Mountain and then a couple of more days till we are in Hampton. After that it should only take us a few days to reach Damascus, where we will be at Trail Days!!!! If there is anyone who is reading this that lives near Damascus, aka in Knoxville...you should make the ride up to Trail Days. It has about 30,000 people that show up every year, should be tons of fun! After Trail Days the Brits will be leaving us Don't know what we're going to do once they leave, we'll have to think of something to do to cheer us up! Hope everyone is doing well in Texas and Tennessee!