Date: 2020-06-13
From: Wayah Bald

To: Sassafras Gap Shelter
Miles today: 24.3
Weather: clear sky

It was a cold and windy night cowboy camping on Wayah Bald and I spent most of it tightly wrapped in every layer in my pack. But the night sky made it worth it. I awoke before dawn to voices visiting the tower. They left, I quickly changed and started packing up, when a plump local couple came up to the tower loaded with camera equipment. The wife slipped on a stone paver just as she saw me and fell cartoonishly on her ample behind. I felt bad for her and apologized if I surprised her. They set up tripods to record the sunrise over the mountains. Despite cloud cover in the east the colors of the ridgelines were spectacular. The sun's rays pierced through the clouds and illuminated the hills. Magical.Broke camp and headed down the trail around 6:45. I thought I was making good time, but still stuck around 2.4 mph, consistent with last few days. It warmed up but the weather remained dry and comfortable.Six miles in I dropped my pack at Cold Springs Shelter and went to find the privy. Couldn't find it so I had to use plan B. Meanwhile I heard a big thump down at the shelter, a couple hundred yards out of sight. Oh, great, did a bear find my pack? Visions of all my worldly possessions flung down the hill in a search for food flashed through my head. But it was only David, the Colorado Trail hiker, dumping his own pack. Another hiker, Old School, a 64-year-old triathlete, also showed up. He's been hiking the trail since the 70s and knows this spot well.As I approached Tellico Gap a few miles later two cyclists were walking their mountain bikes up the trail. The AT only permits foot traffic. It's famous for that. The PCT and many others allow horses, bikes, even motorized vehicles in places. But not anywhere on the AT. I don't want to be the AT trail ethics police, but I know how bikes damage other trails I've used. I ask them if they know this is the AT. Sure, they say. You know it's only for hikers? We are hiking!, they say, with a wink. I'm not amused. One asks "What does it look like we're doing?". I have a few answers for that, but I leave them with "It looks like you're biking on the Appalachian Trail, sir." I'm not the trail police, but they don't get my blessing for being jerks. As I descend I warned a family of dayhikers of the bikers uphill. God forbid they come roaring down this steep single track and hurt someone.Up at Wesser Bald there's another firetower and great circular views. A large group of friends are dayhiking and I snap their picture. Three amateur radio buffs have set up strange antennae. With 10 watt transmitters, their signals bounce off the ionosphere, allowing for direct radio communication around the world. One guy with a 5 watt rig yells out "Can you believe this? Czech Republic!" On the long 3400 foot downhill from Wesser Bald to the Nantahala River I finished listening to Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself". He has some perennial and somewhat cliched observations of American quirks (the columns are from the late 90s), but he overstates the case too often for comic effect or due to his own biases. He also plays to his British audience's assumptions about Americans. Not as good as some of his other works, including "A Walk in the Woods" about his AT hike.The Nantahala River is at the bottom of this 3000-foot deep gap. In fact Nantahala is Cherokee for "land of the noonday sun," where gaps and hollows as so steep the sun only reaches them for a few hours.I made it down to the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) around 2:30. Sunrise was resting at a picnic table among the throngs and I met another thruhiker named Wanderer from Missouri who started after Memorial Day. I loaded up on calories in the form of a burger and mac 'n cheese. The NOC and the Nantahala river were bustling with hundreds of tourists, kayakers, and rafters. Very sunny and warm. I submerged myself in the cool river before packing up to tackle the long climb out of the gap. Just then David walked through, didn't hear us, and wandered off to a cabin for the night. A long 3000 foot seven mile climb took the next several hours. I listened to the book "Grandma Gatewood's Walk", about the 67-year-old who in 1955 became the first solo woman to thruhike, starting out with no tent, no sleeping bag, dungarees, a homemade twelve-pound sack she slung over her shoulder, and a pair of Keds. She told her eleven grown children she was going out to "take a walk" but not that it would be five months!The climb was not as tough as I feared, and the climate was still pleasant. I still had energy when I reached Sassafras Gap Shelter. Sunrise was eating dinner, along with a weekend sectioner named Thor and his dog Warren. Thor just needs the Smokies to complete the first 900 miles of the trail, which he started 20 years ago in his youth. He was reserved so the conversation waned. I exploded my pack and set out making a ham and cheddar wrap with mustard, salt, and pepper packets gathered from various restaurants.No bearbox or cables here. Sunshine left his hang kit at Wayah Bald. So I hoisted both bags on my line. Don't think it's ever had that much weight, so crossing my fingers. It was a model PCT hang from a difficult Y-branch if I do say so myself. A girl tenting behind the shelter made an appearance only to tie her bear bag to a tree on the ground. "It's an Ursack" she explained, obviously not realizing that not only can a bear tear through that reinforced fabric, but even a mouse can gnaw through it.It was chilly again as I rotisseried on my pad and eventually drifted off in the shelter.