Date: 2019-04-19
From: Overmountain shelter

To: Route 19E
Miles today: 9.2
Weather: broken clouds

The Overmountain hayloft is a refuge in the storm. The wind roars angrily throughout the night, bringing heavy showers. Come first light the 28 or so refugees up here begin to stir. I dress and pack and climb down to eat breakfast. It looks calmer outside than it sounds upstairs, and the rain has momentarily slowed. But the wind is still strong and blows out my stove. Twenty minutes of protection from the shifting gusts is needed to get a boil, and with it some oatmeal and tea. The first few brave souls head out across the meadow towards the trail. We can see sheets of rain falling over them. It seems like a great day to stay put. But the storm system will take a couple days to pass through and most people are trying to get to one of the hostels at route 19E, almost ten miles away. One tramily of seven is lucky to have phone service and gets Mountain Harbour hostel to meet them at a blue-blaze trailhead a mile below the shelter. But whether one mile or ten, no one's staying dry today.I have my own reason for hiking into the storm. It's almost Easter, and time to head home to my wife and kids. This is the end of a 400 mile section. I miss them, and I'm not going to let a little rain stand in my way! I'm meeting a shuttle at 1pm to take me back to my car in Abingdon, Virginia, so I can drive the 500 miles back home to Pennsylvania. It's going to be a long day.I throw on a cap, rain jacket and rain mitts, and pull an emergency poncho over me and my pack for good measure, then hike out. Before I even cover the quarter mile back to the trail, everything exposed is wet. And I'm still under tree cover.Most of the next five miles are not.There are officially only two balds in this stretch, Little Hump and Hump Mountains, but the trail is mostly exposed from the point I rejoin it at the shelter side trail. On a good day this would be a pleasant stroll in the open air with majestic views around every turn. But today the wind is whipping, driving the rain into me like sleet. The trail is a river, gushing with rivulets and waterfalls over every rock. Where it is flat, there are puddles and ponds dozens of yards long.My "Oh well!" moment comes early on when I reach a small pond covering the trail with no rocks to hop or any way around. My feet are not going to stay dry today. In I go! If you can't beat it, at least make it fun! Some of the puddles are deeper than I expect. But each time, within seconds of clearing the water, most of it has drained from my shoes and my wool socks, though drenched, feel warm again. Days like this are why "waterproof" shoes are a bad idea on the AT. They keep water in better than they keep it out.Hiking in the open below the bald summits is drenching and slippery but not intimidating. Up on the balds, though, the wind is in charge. It drives the rain sideways into my face and arms like countless daggers. The gusts sometimes change direction and catch me off guard. I have to dig in before lifting each foot lest I lose my balance. The trail is mostly a muddy river with little traction. I almost go down more than once. Thank you trekking poles! Hiking on the slick grass is slightly more secure. The wind gains more fury as I approach the summit. Despite the tempest I can see nearby mountains through the rolling mist. And I can see the bald continuing on and on. While it's no walk in the woods, I'm enjoying the challenge and the experience. I've hiked through many kinds of rainstorms, but few of this power. On Saddleback Mountain in Maine I memorably crossed three miles of treeless alpine bedrock in what felt like a tropical storm and was rewarded with hypothermia. I'm better prepared today, and it's slightly warmer. On the other hand, my rain mitts have already wetted out, my pants are soaked, and only my $1.50 poncho has prevented my much pricier rain jacket from failing as well. Short of a hurricane, the only thing that could make this storm more interesting is lightning.Uh, oh. Now you've done it.No sooner do I think it, when a flash catches my eye and thunder splits the sky a second later. I'm in the middle of a grassy field at 5500 feet with nothing taller than a twelve-inch rock around me. I immediately pick up my trekking poles and hold them horizontal to prevent them from becoming lightning rods. But that just makes sliding through the mud and grass less stable. Lying down in the pouring rain is not an attractive option, and won't get me out of harm's way. So I slip and slide to the tree line as fast as the mud will allow. It's a long half mile, with several more flashes to remind me why I'm hurrying.Below tree line the trail has more fun in store - rocks, boulders, roots, rivers, puddles. The hillside is a sieve with torrents of runoff pouring onto the trail, and running with it a ways before finding an outlet. Every innocuous spring and stream is now a raging river bursting across the trail. I alternate rock hopping and sloshing through the muck as conditions require. It's a pleasure to rinse my feet in the clean streams of runoff, only to drop them once again in a muddy pit.A final open meadow at Doll Flats, complete with lightning, leads to a sign announcing the AT is finally leaving North Carolina for good, after 300 miles or so, most of that along the Tennessee state line. Thirteenth state done!Eventually I catch up with Buzz, Downhill, and Rocket Man as we descend a rock-strewn slope and boulder staircase. I am drenched everywhere, even under the poncho, from sweat and wicking. My fingers are numb under my rain mitts. So much for that innovation. I want to take pictures, but each one requires removing a mitt, taking my phone from its protective pouch with fingers that move like molasses, trying to avoid soaking the electronics, quickly twisting the phone to enter camera mode, trying it again with a wrist that moves far slower than it should, fighting the wet screen to register my touch and capture an image, then carefully placing the phone away and pulling on and fastening a drenched mitt over numbed digits. What normally takes ten seconds now takes several minutes.As the elevation drops the trail becomes less rocky and the runoff more controlled. It's been channelled into a roaring creek that yesterday was probably a quiet stream. It floods tentsites near the trail. No good stealth spots here. The trail itself is still a stream but by this point it's the easiest walking I've had all day.There's one last foot soaking to wade through the drainage area below Route 19E before climbing to the road. Traffic is light but steady and roars by quickly. I haven't seen cars move this fast in weeks. I've agreed to meet my shuttle at the Station at 19E, a hostel/brewpub advertised as 0.4 miles east. I've had no service for days therefore no way to confirm the ride, so I start walking and hope for the best. It takes a good while at a very fast walking clip and feels more like a mile. The gravel parking lot has largely been washed away by active gushers of runoff. I wade through more water to reach the door. I seem to be the first one to arrive through the storm, and carefully peel off my outer layers before entering. The owner, Dave, finds me on his way out to pickup hikers at the trailhead (cell service would have been nice!), and asks me with great concern if I have a reservation. They're full for the night and he doesn't want to turn me away. He's visibly relieved when I assure him I'm just here for food. Dave is not only the owner and driver but also the cook (and chief bottle washer perhaps). So while I wait I have some liquid grain. It takes several painstaking minutes to extract the cash from my pack with still-numb fingers. A few hikers who stayed last night are eating turkey legs. I have almost an hour so put in a lunch order. But after Dave's frequent shuttle runs delay the preparation I dial it back to just an order of wings. Meanwhile I chat with a thruhiker named Thoreau from Pittsburgh about identifying wildflowers, hiking with kids, the bluegrass band that played here last night and more, while hikers from Overmountain pour into the place.It's nearly one and my ride, a guy named Uncle Mike, has appeared but my wings have not. Dave conjures them up just in time to take out, an hour after I arrived. They've been very busy, though I watched several people finish turkey legs they ordered after me. But beggars can't be choosers! The wings are delicious and I'm thankful to have been out of the rain.Uncle Mike is a white-bearded Kentucky native who's made a home in Bristol, Tennessee for many years. He's been a coal miner, school janitor, amateur historian, gardener, hiker, and probably more that I missed. He likes helping hikers, and people in general. One young hiker needed to get home for his grandfather's funeral. After he started counting out change to pay the shuttle to the bus depot, Uncle Mike told him to put it away and bought him the bus ticket home.We drive past Hampton, which is practically on the AT, then through Bristol. Bristol has a lovely old train station and is trying to get Amtrak to extend its Roanoke line through Bristol to Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Birmingham. Some hotels are going up in old warehouses. At one time Bristol was a rail crossroads similar in importance to Atlanta today with air travel. It sits near the southern end of the Great Valley that runs through the Appalachians the length of Virginia and Pennsylvania and into New York, connecting the seaboard with the inland and Mississippi valley.Soon enough we're in Abingdon and I'm back in my car. There's a set of civilian clothes in the trunk. I peel off every article of clothing, every last bit of which is soaked. Funny, it didn't feel that wet until I took it off. Wonder of wonders my car is just as I left it and starts without issue. Once the brakes loosen up I'm good to go.It's 500 miles back home to Pennsylvania, mostly along I-81. I'm following the arc of the storm system and driving through heavy rain on and off. My first stop is in Christiansburg for Chick-fil-A. The AT runs through a Chick-fil-A desert, one of the major design flaws in Benton MacKaye's vision.The rain lessens as I head north. It's after midnight when I reach home. Everyone is asleep. I will reunite with my family in the morning. Another section complete. Only 75 miles remain...