Date: 2017-10-18
From: Clyde Smith shelter

To: Beauty Spot
Miles today: 15.9
Weather: clear sky

Sriracha came in to the shelter bearing bad news: midway through the evening, Sweetblood and 2am had both been afflicted by norovirus or some other form of virulent intestinal distress and had been, as he not-so-delicately put it, "going both ends" frequently and throughout the night.It was little surprise they were looking second best when they packed up and we deferred our departure until 10am to see how they were faring.2am went ahead but we found him less than a mile later, lying on the ground and clearly not doing well. Sweetblood was doing about as well as could be expected, but that was markedly short of doing well. Fortunately, there was an AT hostel down a side trail less than two miles from our shelter. Greasy Creek Friendly was as famous for being a nice place to stay as it was for the occupant of the neighbouring house, who had a habit of verbally abusing any hikers that went past. (If his house, the only other one in the hamlet, wasn't nicknamed Greasy Creek Unfriendly, I will be very disappointed.)By the time we reached the turnoff, it was clear that neither 2am or Sweetblood would be able to continue so they headed down to the hostel, along with Sriracha who was wondering how he'd managed to dodge this particular bullet. Dirt and I continued on, agreeing to meet again in Erwin, the town 30 trail miles ahead.Today's hike, after our recent reminder of the benefits of hiking on balds, was a reversion to the usual long, forested and viewless ridgelines to which we'd become so accustomed. The main upside was at least it meant we made good miles.This was despite a grunty ascent of Unaka mountain, the reward for which came near the top of the mountain in the form of a mossy enchanted forest which was some of the nicest woodland we'd seen this side of New England. Just the other side, we hiked through a stand of pine trees and found one decorated like a Christmas tree. Closer examination showed it had a more sombre story, serving as a memorial to a local young man who'd died aged barely 22.Usually this would be most likely be either a road crash or a suicide, but with the opioid epidemic afflicting much of the territory the AT went through, it seemed equally likely that that might have been the cause of his premature demise. From here, we headed down to a spring, where we stocked up with water for tonight's camp at a place called Beauty Spot. In the process, we found two sobo section hikers present. Morocco Mule and Denim were very very familiar names for weeks in the shelter registers so it was odd to finally meet them. Such is the monodirectional nature of trail communication, of course they had never heard of any of the members of Team KRT.An hour further on we reached the next bald, which went by the entirely accurate moniker of Beauty Spot. We found Happy Feet and OK in a campsite with room for two more.Dirt's friends had both cancelled while we were hiking -- it was a midweek night and they worked day jobs, so it wasn't wholly surprising -- but such was the awesomeness of the views of the sunset over the mountains ahead, we were happy to have made the effort to get here.And tonight, I'm using my bivy bag in an attempt to do my first successful cowboy camp on the AT...Life is good.AT fact of the day: As we'd left the shelter, Vietnam Vet had managed to phone the dog's owner and offered to stay present until the owner arrived. Good for him.