Date: 2013-04-25
From: Campsite beyond Beauty Spot

To: Hughes Gap
Miles today: 17.1
Weather: few clouds

Good evening dear readers,Good heavens, what a long day it's been. 11pm right now, and we're hiking 21 miles tomorrow? Even with daypacks that sounds like "Uh oh". Well, it has been a great day! Despite my ever ongoing sinus/breathing issues, I totally killed Unaka Mountain this morning. By "killed" I mean I didn't have to stop on the climb! Sure, I was super slow, but this is more like it . Just amazing the levels of forest we went through on that mountain - super dense spruce at the top and we actually needed the blazes as the trail wasn't obviously visible in the dense pine needles, which I don't think has happened before not on rock scrambles! Headbones said the woods seemed refrigerated, which I have to agree with would be amazing in summer but not so amazing in late April! I couldn't wait to get back to the sun. The sun was a common theme today - we dried out our wet, frosty tents on the road by the campsite and it was a good 10 degrees warmer just being up 20 yards and in the sunlight coming over the horizon. I leapfrogged with Cookie and Wolfie (we're sticking with it!) in the morning and I so enjoyed seeing them again. At lunch at the shelter we all had tents and clothes draped around, drying out. OB was talking up our slack packing trail magic for tomorrow since we'll be going SOBO over Roan highlands and will see everyone again. Cookie's request - kosher pickles! Everyone else seemed excited about home baked goods or snacks that we'll be carrying to hand out. The afternoon gave me my first experience with the "long green tunnel"'except it was more brown still than green. Just pounding out the miles, no real defining characteristics, not much to see in the woods at that elevation. It wasn't bad, just a bit boring but music did help distract the mind. The last few miles were painful -'descending and the day was just long. We were also all somewhat stressed to meet Mona at the agreed upon time at the road. We did have a fantastic surprise about 3 miles out - gorgeous light and rocks on Little Rock Knob - 7 or 8 layers of mountains on one side, and rolling pasture land on the other. We were all just awestruck, how exemplifying of the trail so far! After lots of pictures we scrambled over the rest of the rocks (knob typically gives us rocks of some form!) and down to meet Mona. She hiked up about a mile to meet us, or rather OB, and the smile on his face when he saw her brought an "ahhh" to my lips and grins exchanged with Headbones. What a great couple they are, she's absolutely awesome. We're staying in Johnson City, it being the most central place to the various trailheads we'll go to one our slackpacking adventure the next 3 days. It's about a 45 minute drive so by the time we got to the Mexican restaurant for dinner we were all super stiff. I don't know why but I can easily sit on the ground, rocks, and tree limbs,'and crawl in and out of my tent at the end of the day, but it was super hard to get out of that Camry! Johnson City is a college town and the first larger town I've been in over the past 6 weeks. So strange to just see everyone going about living their lives, all the chain stores, etc. Almost more of a shock to the senses than Gatlinburg was!