Date: 2013-05-21
From: Erwin, TN

To: Beauty Spot Gap 
Miles today: 12.7

What a day and a night! I'm actually writing this entry on Wednesday, which is tomorrow, so I am a voice from the future. I was in no condition to write anything last night, as you will find out shortly. So I left Uncle Johnny's yesterday morning, feelinga bit down. I don't know any of the hikers anymore. Everyone I knew has either gotten off thettrail or is far ahead of me. Not only that, but theyseem different now. It used to be that hikers greeted each other, interacted with each other more. Everyone was very open to everyone else, and barriers between different groups of people just fell away because we were all hikers, regardless of our status in the "real world" . Now they all seem to be comfortable in their little cliques, and don't seem willing to reach out anymore. I did meet one nice young fellow at Johnny's, Ben from Canada, otherwise everyone looked right through me.So I left there and hiked on the road on the bridge over the Nolichucky River, which is the AT. The trail reentered the woods, and I felt at home again. The trail crossed over some railroad tracks. There was a plastic bin sitting in the woods, it had been some trail magic, but it was empty now. The story of my hike, I always just miss the trail magic. I kept hiking as the day grew warm and once again, very humid. I met a few other hikers along the way, but the friendliness and camaraderie of all hikers really seems to be a thing of the past, when we were all new to hiking and excited about everything. My plan was to stop for the night at a campsite at Beauty Spot Gap, which was a good thing, because as the day went on the humidity was making it very hard for me. I've really never handled heat well. Someone told me there was trail magic on top of Beauty Spot, hot dogs and cold drinks! I was very excited about that! Finally I got there, and I wasn't feeling very well at all by then, overheated, headachy, very fatigued. There were a couple of tents set up, a table, and some hikers sitting on the grass. No sign of food. Was this the trail magic? Or someone's campout, that some hikers had crashed? I stood there awkwardly for a few minutes waiting for someone to say something like, "Oh, darn it, you just missed the trail magic! I'm afraid it's all gone. " But no one said anything, they just ignored me. Am I suddenly invisible? The camaraderie is definitely over. So I walked on,down to the campsite, and I was really feeling sick by then, very wobbly, and I was being eaten alive by those horrible bugs! I still don't know what they are, I call them North Carolina bugs, because I first encountered them outside of Hot Springs, and I've never seen anything like them in Tennessee, where I live. But I'm pretty sure I'm in Tennessee now, so they obviously don't respect state lines. After drinking about two liters of water and dousing my head with cold water and resting for a few minutes I felt better, so the next order of business was to light a fire to keep the bugs away. That done, I fixed my supper, got my water and filtered it, hung my bear bag, all the usual camp chores. I was hoping someone else would come along and share my campsite, but no one did.Finally the thunder started. I didn't know rain was forecast. I hurried to put up my hammock and secure all my stuff, and made it just in time. What followed was maybe the scariest few hours of my life. I'm not afraid of storms in general, and actually enjoy watching and listening to a good summer thunderstorm. That's not what this was. The thunder boomed and cracked and banged constantly, for hours. Lightning kept the sky lit up.The wind roared and in the flashes of lightning I could see the tree tops whipping around. I prayed for protection, for calm. I started texting back and forth with Mike, it was comforting to be in communication with someone. My hammock was swaying in the wind, which normally feels good, like I'm being rocked to sleep, but not this time. I finally texted Mike to call the nearest hostel to see if he could get me a shuttle out of there, even though it was after nine o'clock, but no luck. I even called 911 because I wanted out of there so bad, but they couldn't help me either. So I waited it out.It did eveventually stop, of course, and I got out of the hammock and resecured my tarp, which had been blown around by the wind. Finally I went to sleep, to the pitter patter of raindrops. At least there were no bears out in the bad weather. And no bugs.