Date: 2015-03-20
From: Lemon Gap

To: Standing Bear Hostel
Miles today: 18.7

We had high hopes for an improvement in the weather today, the forecaster said only a 30% chance of rain. So we packed our ponchos, but carried them along just in case. We got up at 5:30 this morning to be sure we were ready to hop in the shuttle at 7:00. Maria was there and ready to go right on time, and we headed to Lemon Gap. About 5 minutes before we reached the gap it started to sprinkle. We figured it would pass, so we hopped out and took off SoBo with our slack packs back toward Standing Bear. The first couple of miles were fine, but as we started to gain altitude, a cloud rolled in and the sprinkle returned. The rain got heavier and we finally put on the rain gear. After that it rained or dripped most of the rest of the way. Max Patch and Snowbird Mountain were the scenic highlights of the day's hike. Both are "balds" with large grassy meadows on top. The local story goes that Mack Patch has the top of his mountain cleared for cattle. At this point there's no indication of cattle. And today both balds were fully shrouded in fog. Max Patch was almost scary. The bald is huge and takes time to cross. The fog was so thick that we literally couldn't see more than one blaze post at a time. And the wind was howling across the bald at 40 mph. When we finally got to the center of the bald we saw several trails leading in different directions. But the fog was so thick that we couldn't see far enough to tell which was the AT. We started down one, but couldn't find a blaze. So we gave up and tried another, this time I scouted for a blaze while Princess waited at the central point. I finally found one, but had to retrace most of my steps before I was close enough that she could see me. And the howl of the wind drowned out any other sounds. Coming down from Max Patch we were treated to trail magic from Apple. He doesn't hike but he has been doing magic for many years. We saw him at Brown Gap and he said he has been there all week. He does magic on other trails as well and moves from trail to trail. He thinks he will head to the mid-continent trail next. Snowbird Mtn was a big climb but also a disappointment since it was also socked in and very blustery. We found the point (just south of the Snowbird peak) where Packrat blocked the trail with his hammock last year and we ended up off trail. This time it was blowing rain and after about a half mile of steep downhill we realized we hadn't seen a blaze for a while. After going a bit further we turned around and retraced our steps uphill. Eventually we concluded that we had to be on the trail after all, and headed down again (cursing, I can assure you). We found a blaze just beyond where we had turned around. From that point it was mostly downhill to the hostel. Since we were SoBo, we saw lots of hikers, many that we talked with at the hostel last night or met in the Smokey's shelters. We met Ironman, just Pete, and Silverback early in the hike. Buny and Bow were a little further on. They are trying to decide whether to zero in Hot Springs or Erwin. We suggested Hot Springs since the trail goes right through town. Later we saw Boondoggle & That Guy, they always seem to be in great spirits. This evening we're packing up. We'll carry our full packs tomorrow into Hot Springs. It will eventually get better.