Date: 2008-11-04
From: locust cove gap

To: nantihala outdoor center
Miles today: 10.5
Weather: clear sky

A lot of things going on today...it is shawna's birthday!!! Her last day hiking on the appalachian trail, election day, and I get to see my friend Sarah that I havent seen for over a year! Last night I lay thinking about how it was going to be so different on the trail now that Shawna was leaving. Up north we were hking with a group of people but down south it has just been the two of us and we usually hiked right together. Talking or not, it was great to have the company of one another. And as with most people when you spend 24/7 with someone you have your good and not so good times but all the while you grow closer as friends, you get used to having that person around and the familiarity of them. Shawna has been such a great encouragement to me lately as I have been struggling a little bit with the difficulty of the trail (steeper sections to climb) and getting tired. I knew that today would be a hard day because I had to say goodbye to shawna, it will be a long time before I will be able to see her again as she is leaving to start some job training. Im really going to miss her, as she keeps me safe from snakes (today there was a snake in the middle of the trail that I really was afraid of and I ended up walking off trail to walk around it be still felt safer because she was there, i mean come on she is after all the snake whisperer)and other animals (in the shelter once i thought I heard a bear coming and I curled up in a ball in my sleeping bag and called out to shawna in my fright), and helps me undo some stupid mistakes I make out here sometimes(walking down some rocks slipping and almost doing the splits with my knee bent in a direction that I didnt think was possible).   So today was a bittersweet day. But with some backcountry flare I made a birthday twix cake, stacked up some twix and stuck a match on top and lit it like a candle and saranated shawna with my best happy birthday song! then amazed her and all the wilderness animals with my amazing attempt to walk on a log like a balance beem, so i think i counted myself dying/falling off about 7 times while trying to walk across it once. Then she came right behind walking effortlessly across. Really I just let her beat me cause is was her birthday...well okay lets me honest she just has better balance. but i think that the whole balance beem thing was my attempt at stauling the beginingn of the hike as we had cheoah bald before us to climb. The section from stecoah gap to cheoah bald is suppost to be one of the really steep sections of the trail just going straight up for an extended climb. I had been told about it by other hikers and the guidebook we use also mentions it and the guidebook never suggests that climbs are challenging, so i had myself intimdated...right after the smokys we entered the nantihala forest area which is known for steep climbs so we had a steep climb out of fontana yesturday and i didnt know if what was ahead of me was going to be worse of much the same. anyway we eventually took off and conquered cheoah bald, which after the fact didnt really seem that bad, as we belted out another one bites the dust up on top of the mountain. There was a great look out on this sunny clear morning, where i promptly plopped myself down and enjoyed a snickers bar and the view. breathing in the fresh air and realizing that these views that i take for granted will soon be coming to an end, as i will again be in four walled places, dreaming of mountain top views. so after resting awhile we took off again for our next descent and ascent. We saw this sign that was nailed to a tree, but it looked as if the tree was starting to eat the sign as it was growing over it. Seems like the lower we descended the brighter the fall colors were becoming (in the last part of the smokys we noticed all the color was gone giving way to brown dead leaves and had thought the fall colors had left for the year) As the day wore on I realized i was hking my last few miles with shawna and started to cry some (quietly of course cause i didnt want her to know i was crying behind her) but excited for her as we were coming quickly upon her ending point which was the nantihala outdoor center. So we finally arrived and had one last dinner of pizza and brownies together for shawnas birthday! The time had come for us to say our see ya later until our next crazy adventure in 5 years...so i am now taking a few days off trail to wait for creekdiver to get back to the trail so she can finish with me. I get to spend some time with my friend Sarah in TN, Im so excited!!!!!!!! I am also excited to have time to get refreshed and rest before one last 100 miles on trail. so I now pause with 134 miles left....but i will be back on trail next week