Date: 2007-04-15
From: Hogback Ridge Shelter

To: Bald Moutnain Shelter
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: light rain

Today started out pretty crappy and then took a turn for the Uber-crappy. Wet, cold and windy again, but getting colder. Donny and I knew we were only going 10 miles today, so we didn't think much of the hike today in terms of difficulty. There were a few decently big hills, but as the day went on, the temp started dropping and the wind picked up substantialy. The rain turned to small hail; no problem, I'll just keep this busted MARMOT RIM JACKET closed with tape and my pack straps. Then the hail turned to an icy-rain mix starting to become annoying. Then, as we got close to the top of Big Bald at around 5516 fett, the wind increased again to at least 35-40 MPH and the ice/rain was coming in at a horizontal trajectory! Donny and I came upon a large sign announcing that the Trail split; The regular, proper trail, markled with the traditional white Blazes took hikers to the summit of Big Bald. "Bald" meaning no trees to block views... or wind! Then there was the blue blazed, summit by-passing trail that went around the leeward side of the mountain. I quickly weighed my options. I was freezing, my fingers were ungloved and frozen making them useless to get my zippers open to get my gloves out, My zipper was busted on my shell, and I was near misserable. I had heard that blue blazed trails were allowed in incliment weather and would not coount against me for missing white blazes. I could "Blue Blaze" and still be considered a thru hiker! I declared the weather incliment and chose the blue blazed trail, I'm not embarassed to say. there would be no view from the top anyway! And with my busted P.O.S. MARMOT RIM JACKET that MARMOT refused to replace, the less ice blowing into the jacket the better. Donny chose to go up the summit trail, so we said good luck and planned to meet at the shelter still over a mile away past the summit. By the time I reached the end of the bypass trail, snow and ice was accumulating and sticking to the trees and anything else. This made the blazes hard to follow and I spent 30 minutes trying to find where the blue blazed trail met back up with the white blazed trail! By now, it was near blizzard conditions and holding the map open was a chore in it self. Working the small zippers and clips to get to my gloves with my red frozen fingers was not an option now, piss poor planning, a mistake not to be repeated, (Lessons From The Trail!) I finaly found the proper trail and set out to the shelter and my last hot meal in my pack as we were supposed to knock out an 18 mile day into erwin tomorrow! I had to pass through another bald, a wide open field with tremendous left to right wind that would knock me off the trail many times! Ice/snow was stinging my face and sticking to my pants and hat. The moisture was soaking through my newly aquired, non-water proof trail runner shoes, I missed my boots terribly. thoughts of sunny Florida and a warm home were now dominating my thoughts. Then, I thought I saw Ben "Obi Wan" Kenobi and he was telling me that I needed to go to the Dagoba System and seek out Yoda...   After what seemed like forever, the shelter sign appeared. Donny was there and hunkering down. It was getting dark, colder and super windy and now, snowing hard and steadily AND it was only 4:00! We were in for a long night. It was too cold to do anything but change out of the wet clothes, put on all available remaining clothes, eat and get into our sleeping bags and warm up. It was too cold and windy to read, even in the shelter, so I closed up my bag and played games on my cell phone, and text messaged people to tell them I was safe and to inquire about the current weather system. It didn't look to end anytime soon.I figured that in the morning we could make a break for Spivey Gap, 6 miles away, to a road crossing and get a ride into Erwin to warm up and wait out the storm. I called Miss Janet and got her to agree to send a shuttle for us in the morning as long as the road was passable. The wind blew snow into the shelter and onto all our gear dusting our sleeping bags and getting them wet. I deployed my mylar emergency blanket to try and keep the snow off me. After dark, Thunder, dog's Life, and CrankBait remarkabley showed up! we couldn't believe they were out in this crap hiking. They were frozen popcicles and quickly changed, ate and went to get in their bags. An annoying New Yorker kid just out of high school aptly named Young and Dumb rolled in shortly after the other 3 guys. They hung some tarps over the exposed shelter opening in an effort to keep the wind and snow to a minimum. The kid was hyper and loud and it took a group effort to get him settled and quiet. We tried to sleep, it was not easy. The wind was howling all night and the snow was driven. Through a Text message mix up, my friend Starlyte thought we may have tried to bug out tonite, she called Janet who got nervous and called the local law and asked them to be on the lookout for us if we did try to come down at night. The dispatch called my phone and left a message that I got at 4:00 am! I called them back and informed them of the mistake and that we were in fact NOT coming out until the morning. What a night!