Date: 2009-04-08
From: Hot Springs, NC 

To: Hot Springs, NC
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Cell noneOG notesI fell asleep last night and didn't write a journal entry, so here it is.We had one heck of a night Monday night. It snowed all night and accumulated about 9 inches. I didn't know you could get that much snow here in the south. Then again we were at an altitude of approx. 4000 feet.We awoke to a winter wonderland where everything was covered in snow, the temperature was below freezing (21 degrees), and the wind was blowing adding to the wind chill factor. We all stared at each other wondering (that's where the winter wonderland name comes from) what were our options and what should we do.We decided to hike in groups for safety and make sure we were safe. Our group started with Red Leg, Braid, C6 and myself. Eventually we caught up with the whole pack from the shelter and there were 12 of us together. Soon after, the hill climbs started and Red Leg moved up with a faster group. Braid stayed with us the entire way and we had some excellent conversations the whole way down the moutain. The day was long and the hiking was hard. Our incentive was to get out of the snow and into town, and we did it. This is our longest day...18.8 miles. This is really a lot more than we are comfortable doing, but we are more comfortable here than in the snow.One additional situation occured that also played into our decision. On Monday night our stove quit as we were cooking dinner. If you remember, I forgot our fuel bottle at a shelter and another hiker gave us his extra canister. I don't know if we ran out of fuel, or if the fuel froze in the canister. Either way, we didn't have any way to heat water to cook our food and keep warm. Incidentally, we are using a Jetboil Canister stove. Canister stoves are very tempermental in the cold weather. I used an alcohol stove in 2006, but chose this stove because I thought we would need to boil more water than the alcohol could do. I'm seriously considering switching to the alcohol stove; time will tell.Well we made it safely into town and were pleased to reach the Duckett House. We discovered a note on the door stating they had three rooms available. We chose one of the three and moved our gear inside.Braid wanted to go to another house (one that I have no interest in) so he went the opposite way once we got to town. After we dropped our gear, we walked to the place Braid was heading for to find him. Unfortunatly, he was not able to get into the place and had to find an alternate place for the night. He moved to his first choice this morning, as did Neal.We found the others at the Iron Horse Station. It is a bar, restaurant, and hotel combination. Most of the others ended up there. We had dinner at the Iron Horse and had a nice evening there, as most of our hiker friends were there.Okay, that brings you up to date for yesterday.Today started with a great breakfast here at the Duckett House. We washed our clothes right here at the Duckett House; our friends had to take their clothes to the laundromat downtown as they didn't get that amenity in their package.By the time the laundry was done we went downtown. Okay...this is a small town, we went down Main Street where we met Neal, Red Leg, and Braid. We all went to the Smoky Mountain Diner for lunch. Again other friends came in and joined us. The group we are hiking with are beginning to jell and we look forward to being together.After lunch we went to the Bluff Mountain Outfitters to pick up our maildrop package and to buy a few replacement things. They have an old scale in the store that you can weigh yourself on. I stepped on it and it said I am 182 lbs. I don't know how accurate this figure is but I like it. I weighed 215 on our scale at home before we started. I think I weighed 175 on this same scale in 2006, I started that hike weighing 195 lbs. They say the more you have to lose the easier the pounds come off. The next time I weigh in I probably won't see the same results. I'll ask C6 to tell her weight on that scale. We carried our box back here and sorted our food for the next leg of our journey. We dried out our tent on the clothesline and now we are sitting in our room relaxing.We have decided to not hike tomorrow either. While we were sitting in the diner eating lunch I developed a cramp in my left leg. The cramp was located in the back part of my upper leg. I had two waves of cramps that I had to wait out for them to pass. I don't know if they were from the walking in the snow yesterday (it was like walking on a beach) or if I was lacking something from not eating correctly yesterday. I'm now relaxing and also drinking Gatoraid for the potassium in it. I think another day of rest will do us both good. So we signed up for another day of the soft life.   C6 notesThis Bed and Breakfast (The Duckett House) is very nice. Brian and Frank (the owners) are so kind, and cook a phenomenal breakfast. Can we stay here for the next few months and just tell everyone we hiked the whole AT? NOT!!! I'm just kidding...but I'm not kidding about how nice the B & B is. The only problem with it is that it's not right in the center of town, so we have to walk about 1/2 mile each way every time we want to do anything in town.OG mentioned the scale in the outfitter. It looks as if I've lost 10 pounds (of the 20 I want to lose). Our appetites have increased, so we eat large meals when we go to a restaurant...I'm especially enjoying huge jucy hamburgers from local restaurants (not McD's or BK). The decision to do a second zero day here tomorrow was also due to the fact that we were trying to get everything done in one day here, after a grueling 18.8 mile intense hike yesterday. I'm glad we decided to take another day off.When we were eating dinner this evening, a hiker who came down the mountain today told us about his day yesterday. We thought our hike was intense! Some members of the group (17 hikers!) who came down today had to crawl over Max Patch because the winds were so strong, and they had snow drifts that were waist high in some places! We saw 2 ft drifts, and huge gusts of wind over Max Patch. We are glad we dealt with the storm when we did, and didn't have to deal wth what they dealt with. Our experience was intense enough! I'm looking forward to a quiet day tomorrow. Then we head back out to the trail Friday.Old Goat & Check Six