Date: 2008-03-19
From: Hogback Ridge Shelter NC/TN 

To: No Business Knob Shelter NC/TN
Miles today: 20.7
Weather: light rain

Day 31 ¢ Wednesday March 19 ¢ No Business Knob Shelter NC/TN ¢ Miles Today: 20.7 Total Miles: 333.5Happy Anniversary to Mr. & Mrs. Brakeman! We were not able to place a call today to wish them happy anniversary as we did not have reception. We'll try tomorrow when we hit Erwin. Despite Trailfoot¢s updated forecast of no rain today, it started to rain at 11:00.We had a very interesting experience hiking up and over Big Bald (5516¢) today. We had the honor of crossing it in a light rain and huge wind. We're guessing that the gusts were 80 plus mph. The winds were strong enough to knock Grasshopper a couple steps to the side of the trail. As we went over the bald, the wind shifted so that we had the wind at our back. Now the wind actually pushed Grasshopper down the trail. She just lifted her feet and the next thing she knew she was running down the trail hooting and hollering. Just like barefooting - wind and spray blowing in the face, and just going wherever her feet took her. Yee Haw! What fun!!Shortly after the bald, we pulled into a shelter for lunch out of the rain. We decided to have our cooked meal of delicious mashed potatoes for lunch rather than dinner since we had the shelter protection and may not if we stop at a campsite for the night. Grasshopper filtered water while Brakeman cooked. Somehow she managed to get more mud on her and the water bottles than water in the bottles, I think, but who¢s looking at the details that closely? We weren¢t sure if our planned campsite at 15 miles had water, so this way we were covered. Around 4:00pm we hit what we thought was the campsite in the book listed 15 miles from last night¢s shelter. These campsites listed in the book are sometimes very hard to find. Since we felt good, we just ate our snack and continued on. It was still raining. After we crossed US19 West, we had a different group maintaining the trails and had nice lovely footbridges with metal lathe covering them for non-skid surfaces. We also had huge rhododendron groves. They weren't quite tunnels yet but groves. We walked through them for miles upon miles. The only bad part of the trail on the other side of US19 West was the fact that the trail had a bit of a slope to the side and it was very narrow. The slight slope was a bit tough on the feet and ankles after such a long day. But we arrived at camp just before 6:30 after covering 20.7 official miles, probably about 21 unofficial miles due to stopping at an interim shelter for lunch. A new record for us!!Luckily it had finally stopped raining around 5pm and we were able to set up camp without the hassle of rain. Camp chores were quick as we had already filtered water at a spring just before camp and we had already eaten our dinner meal, which was cheese and summer sausage burritos, a very nice change of pace from our peanut butter burritos. At camp, we ate a few Oreos, had another bar, and drank a bunch of water because we didn't drink too much water today. When it's raining, Grasshopper does not like to drink a lot of water, because she does not want to go pee. It¢s not an easy thing to do without getting everything wet! There are a couple guys in the shelter, who were here when we got here. We can see their wet socks and clothes spread out on the logs in an attempt to dry them. We did not go over to socialize, as we were ready to climb in our tent for the night. It's now a little bit after 8:00 and the sprinkles have returned. It was about 50 degrees when we woke up this morning and it stayed pretty much in the 50s most of the day. It¢s just barely hitting 60 degrees right now in the tent. The bear bag is hung, the feet are stretched, and the to-do list is made for Erwin. We've got about 6 miles to hike into Erwin and then a 3-mile hitch. We're going to try to hit the trail a little before our normal 8:00 so we can get all our chores done and then have more time to relax and rest. One of our chores includes calling around to outfitters in Damascus to see if we can get the cracked tent pole replaced. I think that's about it from just a few miles shy of Erwin. We will see you tomorrow. Goodnight.