Date: 2003-09-24
From: Carver Gap TN 143/NC 261

To: Hwy 19E Elk Park, NC
Miles today: 13.4

Today is Wednesday September 24th 2003, we call it West Wing day. We got up at our usual time of 5:45 am, got ourselves ready to go, did the all we could eat continental breakfast and took off. Today's hike is Carvers gap to highway 19 E, a 13.6 mile hike over some big hills, but it's a beautiful day, so we have to do this hike. Got the cars shuttled and got ourself started on the trail at 7:55 am. Arrived at the Stan Murray shelter at about 10:28, After 3.1 miles. There are beautiful views today because it is totally clear, sunny and just a gorgeous day for hiking. and that's why we chose this trail. Time to move on. While at the shelter along comes Tom from Atlanta and Pat from Raleigh. They are hiking together today and we had a nice talk with them. They took off but before we did, but we soon past them, cause Pat hikes slowly. We want on to Yellow gap where the Overmountain shelter trail takes off. The Overmountain militia hiked through here in 1780 to fight the British at Kings Mountain. We went down to the Over mountain shelter, which is a large red barn, for lunch at noon and 45 minutes of rest and viewing.From the shelter you look down Roaring Creek Valley and can see balds in the distance. Left there at 12:45 and proceeded up Little Hump mountain which we summited at 2 p.m.. Then down to Bradley gap and backup to Hump mountain which is 5587 feet. We caught up with Tom and Pat right at a fence on the mountain. The fence is to hold in the longhorn cattle that are standing on the trail on the mountain. I forgot to mention the Forest Service guys back at the Overmountain shelter. They were full of stories about the trail. There is a reenactment of the over mountain militia hike this weekend. They recreate the 170 mile hike from Sycamore Shoals to Kings Mountain. Its going to be a full dress up reenactment which would be cool to see, but we won't make it. So at the cattle fence we can see all the cows standing on the trail, not budging, so we have to hike around them. Only Cindy is brave enough to walk up to the Longhorns and tell them to get off her trail. We all decided to walk around the cattle and proceeded up to the summit of the mountain at 3 o'clock.Fantastic views from the top of the mountain, which is a bald mountaintop with 360 degree viewing. Pat and Tom took off to get a 45 minute lead on us down the mountain. We passed them at about 4:20 on down the hill, and they followed us down to Doll Flats at about 4:45. We got down to some steep mountain trails at around 5 o'clock, and chug on down down to the Apple House shelter at about 5:30. We talk to some thru-hikers there, Bojangles and Wheels coming down from Maine, having started May 27th. They expect to be in Springer in 3 weeks from today. We talked to two section hikers heading north. They were the same two guys we saw yesterday on Iron Mountain. They ended up doing 30 miles yesterday and 22 miles today. So they are real macho men. We left there at 6 p.m. and reached highway 19E at 6:20 p.m. Now we are back on top of Carver gap to get our car, we are headed for Erwin or somewhere like that for the night. That's it.