Date: 2013-06-19
From: Hughes Gap

To: Overmountain Shelter
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: clear sky

Wow, wow, what a day! A beautiful day of hiking! A day of beautiful hiking. The fears and vulnerability that plagued me on my first day back are completely gone. The hiking is hard, but I feel strong and my stride is back. I am back!Connie drove me back to Hughes Gap again this morning. I gave her a big hug, she has been a very special person to me on the trail. And off I went, up Roan Mountain. Jane had left earlier, hiking out from Connie's. And Deb and Lynn were going to start at Carver's Gap. So I hiked out alone, and did the 4.5 mile ascent of Roan Mountain, which was not as hard as I expected it to be. It was a lovely day. The little orange newts were out in full force, there was one roughly every 10-20 feet along the trail. They were so cute. I wanted to gather them all together for a group photo, I thought the orange color would be striking against the brown forest floor if they were en masse. But I am disinclined to pick up amphibians, and I thought that since they seemed to like being solitary, they must not be terribly social, and might not appreciate being forced into a group situation. So I just looked for an opportunity to find two of them close enough together to get them in the same shot, and finally I did. I have been taking lots of photos, but it will take me a while to get them all posted, it is so slow to do it from my phone, and the internet connection is spotty to non-existent out here.I kept walking, and walking, and finally got to the top of the mountain. Wow, what a gorgeous place! It is a bald, and there are beautiful rhododendrons blooming everywhere. There is also a road that comes to the top, and public bathrooms, and picnic tables, and lots of sight-seers. I was something of a curiosity with my backpack, and people kept asking me about my hike, where and when I started, and how far I was going. They all wanted to know if I was going to Maine. I told the story several times about how I started as a thru-hker, but I walk slow, and then my mother died and I was off the trail for almost three weeks, so now I didn't really have the time or even the desire to complete the hike, so I was going to go as far as I felt like, maybe to Damascus. It's a long and unwieldy story, and I feel bad for the person I am talking to when I mention my mother's death, they invariably get a look of mixed sympathy and embarrassment on their face. So I resolved that they next person who asked me, I was just going to say that, yes, I was going the whole way. Just to simplify things. The next person turned out to be a lady with two young fellows I assume were her grandsons. Unfortunately, this turned out to not be the right person to fabricate a story to, because she was really quite interested and asked several questions, as did the boys. She took my picture, and got the link to this journal. So ma'am, if you are reading this, I'm sorry to have misled you that I was going to Maine this year when you can plainly see by reading my journal that I am not. But once I had told you that I was finishing the thru-hike this year I couldn't really change it, when I realized how interested you actually were. Was it Robert Burns who said something about what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive? Honesty really is always the best policy.The top of Roan Mountain is a great place, with terrific views. There were artists up there with their easels, all sitting together in a little group, and it made a charming scene. I don't know if they were in a painting class, or club, or just individual artists or friends, but if I could paint I would back up from the group and paint the artists themselves, and not the landscape, because it was really quite a lovely sight. There used to be a big resort hotel up there, back in the late 1800s. Only the stone foundation exists now. The state line ran right through the middle of the hotel, Tennessee on one side and North Carolina on the other. One state sold alcohol and one didn't, so there was a line right down the middle of the dining room.The picnic tables were full, so I sat on some steps and ate my lunch, then went back to the trail to resume my hike north. There was on old fireplace and chimney sitting right in the middle of the trail! I wish I knew its story, or could see the house that used to surround it. I wonder about the people who lived there. Was it at the same time as the hotel, or before or after? I wish I knew. I came to the side trail that went to the Roan Mountain Shelter. It was too early in the day to stop for the night, but I had wanted to take a picture of the shelter because at 6,194 feet, it is the highest shelter on the entire AT. But the blue blaze trail did not look inviting, and it was a distance to the shelter, so I just took a picture of the sign. The trail became very rocky, my least favorite kind of trail, rocky and downhill. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Hard on the feet, knees, toes, and ankles. My right pinky toe in particular started to hurt. Then I came to an evergreen forest--aahh! Lovely! I always appreciate a change in scenery, and this one was especially nice because the smell was intoxicating, and the pine needles made a very soft carpet under my feet. But, the rocks soon returned, and I limped and picked my way slowly down to Carver's Gap. I didn't know anything about Carver's Gap, and expected it to be just another road crossing. Boy, was I wrong! Carver's Gap is beautiful, all the more so because it was unexpected. It is the beginning of a series of balds, each one so incredibly beautiful with blooming rhododendrons, flame azaleas, and killer views, that there were photographers everywhere, with cameras ranging from little simple ones to big huge very complicated looking, professional ones. I encourage you, if at all possible, make a trip to Carver's Gap, but you need to do it now, while the rhododendrons are blooming. There were quite a lot of day hikers there, too. The trail wound up and down, over one bald and then another. It was spectacularly beautiful, but also becoming, to me, uncomfortably hot, and I was in the sun too long. I looked forward to returning to the woods. I did return to the woods, and kept walking. I wanted to stay at Overmountain Shelter, because it is quite well-known to hikers. It is an old barn, quite large, that has been converted into a shelter. That would make over eleven miles for the day, which might be a bit much, so my fallback plan was that the Stan Murray Shelter was 1.9 miles closer than Overmountain, so if I was too tired I would stay there and visit Overmountain tomorrow. But when I got to Stan Murray, it was late afternoon, and guess who was there? Kiwi Don, from Greasy Creek, who was sick as a dog with norovirus! He was flushed, obviously had a fever, and he had been throwing up for two days. I felt so sorry for him, but he's not the kind of guy who wants to be fussed over, and he wouldn't let me do anything for him, even go get him some more water (he actually had plenty). The only thing he would let me give him was some Gatorade powder, which actually was a good thing, as he was doubtless short of electrolytes. So I quickly decided that I didn't want to stay there, after all, and gained confidence in my ability to hike on to Overmountain. Shortly after I left that shelter, what should I find lying beside the trail but a baby fawn, that still had its little baby spots! It was not moving, and I wondered if it was dead. But no, its little ears and tail were twitching. So was it injured? If not, why didn't it get up? And, most of all, where was its mama, and was she going to come along and knock me into the next county?? I took a few pictures while I was pondering all this, and suddenly it jumped up and just ran off. So cute, I felt blessed to have been able to see it.Finally I made it to Overmountain Shelter. It was, as advertised, a big red barn, with yet another spectacular view of the valley and surrounding mountains. A beautiful place to spend the night. I was just finished setting up my stuff when who should arrive but Jane with her dog Lola, from Greasy Creek! She walked a very long way today. She had intended to stop at Roan Mountain Shelter, but she somehow missed it, walked right past it without seeing it, so she came on all the rest of the way here. It was nice to see a friendly face. There are several other hikers here too, two women from Damascus and a hiking club. I made a wonderful dessert. Before leaving home I had emptied a box of chocolate instant pudding and some dry milk (whole fat, Nido brand) into a gallon sized zip lock bag. Tonight I added water and shook it and kneaded it a bit--voila!-pudding! Then I took a sleeve of Mint Thin cookies (from Dollar General, and yes, they taste like Girl Scout Thin Mints), crunched them up, and put them in the pudding. Yum! Of course it made quite a lot, but Jane helped me eat it, and I had some left over to have for breakfast. What an interesting day today was!