Date: 2014-04-29
From: Nolichucky River Valley

To: Iron Mountain Gap
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: moderate rain

Song Bird, and her husband, ByPass, and I arranged with Uncle Johnny's Hostel to drop us off at Iron Mountain Gap where we would begin a slack pack back to Uncle Johnny's, a distance of 20.6 miles. Sarge picked us up at 7:00 AM sharp, drove us by the Convenient Mart for a giant cup of coffee and had us at trail head by 7:45 AM.Before heading up the hill out of the gap, we joined hands on top of trekking poles and Song Bird prayed for us to have a safe journey and to recognize the beauty of Creation. This made me happy because I am usually starting out saying my prayer alone.It was quite a blustery, chilly and sometimes rainy morning. All day long we were constantly adjusting clothing by adding or subtracting layers. The altitude, whether climbing or descending, and the force of the wind (which depended on which side of mountain we were on) contributed to the every varying need to change layers of clothing.By afternoon, the weather was warm and stayed warm the rest of the day. I was just about to say it is cool enough to not worry about mosquitos and snakes, when I spotted a snake. We saw total of three for today. We decided one was a rattlesnake, another was a copperhead and the third was a garter-snake.One highlight was the ascent of Unaka Mountain with an altitudes of 5180 ft . With only small day packs, we were able to continue the climb at a steady pace, but I could feel the effects of the altitude. The top of Unaka Mountain was covered with dense spruce forest. It reminded us of a scene out a Hobbit movie and we thought of the song Misty Mountains Cold.Trail magic today was provided by BT as in Brother Thomas from a local Catholic mission. Best was the glass of cold sweet tea but I also enjoyed a blueberry muffin.I benefited from walking behind Song Bird because she would describe the colors of rocks, flowers and salamanders, since my degree of red colorblindness would have caused me to miss some things. Things noted were orange-red salamanders, numerous types of trillium, iris, trout lilies and a Rufus sided towhee which sings "drink your tea" .It took a 9 hours-45 minutes to finish our hike today. We could have gone more quickly, but we often stopped to chat with northbound hikers. Meeting new people and reconnecting with people I already know is worth stopping to chat. Each person had a story to hear if you take the time. It might be related to events on the trail or in their off trail life. For example,Toasted Toad, was on a grassy bald drying out his tent that had got soaked inside from last night's thunderstorm . It seems that the thunder and lighting around him was a combination of scary and awesome. I missed it this time, but I have a long way to go before Maine.Later I passed Blue Sky and Shaggy which had me singing "Blue Skies" as I hiked on down the mountain. And the skies had turned blue for a while. It only takes a few hours of walking through dark clouds to really appreciate the sunshine.After we got back to hostel we were too late to catch the shuttle but Uncle Johnny and his spouse Charlotte took us to the Mexican restaurant for dinner together giving us all a chance to get acquainted.