Date: 2017-10-12
From: Low Gap, Tennessee

To: Vaneventer shelter
Miles today: 17.9

We're becoming accustomed to the AT in the South being rather more civilised than it had been in Maine and New Hampshire, but one section of trail today really drove the point home by being fully wheelchair accessible."This," I told the others, "is what the PCT is like.". This was partly in jest, having endlessly tormented the other tramily members by comparing the suitable-for-horses grade of the PCT to the cruel-for-the-sake-of-being-cruel nature of the AT's tread, but it also had an element of truth to it. And as a section of gently graded gravel path wound through some farm pastures, it was easy to hike at PCT-style speeds.To be fair, even before and after this short stretch of accessible trail, the trail had been both fast and easy.Shortly after this wheelchair accessible section, we crossed Tennessee Route 91 but I miscounted how many streams we'd crossed and missed the chance to fill my water bottle, leaving me with half a litre to cover the three miles to the next reported source, a pooling spring described as unreliable.Fortunately, that half litre proved to be sufficient and that spring was flowing enough to be a viable source but the one after that, for which we were aiming to fill our bottles to avoid a steep 0.5 mile side trail down a hill to a spring at our intended campsite, was absolutely bone dry. Water continues to be more problematic than before.Soon after this I ran into Oh Yeah, a nobo thru-hiker who'd missed this section and was two miles away from completing his thru-hike at Tennessee Route 91 and was reflecting all the excitement one might expect. I'd also met a father and daughter pair (he was The Colonel but her name escapes me) who were also cleaning up a missed section to Damascus of their thru-hike.The route after lunch was the familiar AT formula of long, flat and forested ridgelines, broken in one place by the memorial for a hermit who lived beside the trail. Like so many previously occupied places on the AT, there was no sign anyone had ever lived her but the memorial, presumably by a niece or nephew, marked that place where Nick Grindstaff "lived alone, suffered alone and died alone". I was suffering alone, but not in a manner comparable to Uncle Nick, and arrived at Vandeventer shelter to find the Second Breakfast Club in situ. It was a nice spot on top of a knoll, promising grandstand views of the sunset and sunrise, but I headed down the hill on a side trail to where they told me Team KRT was camped on a saddle halfway to the the shelter's spring. Of all the long and arduous treks to access water so far on the AT, this might set a new record.But it was good to catch up with the others and soon I'd set my tent up and joined the others in a circle of culinary friendship.Life is good.AT fact of the day: Tennessee Route 91 also marked the point where Sriracha and Sweetblood had begun their southbound shakedown hike, months before they started from Katahdin. What was easy for us now with 1700 miles under our feet was not quite the same for them then, coming in fresh and (probably) carrying too much. Their tales of getting their trail legs while also coping in sub-freezing temperatures, where water froze inside their water bottles, sounded harrowing.