Date: 2013-04-01
From: Carter Gap Shelter

To: Wallace Gap (Franklin)
Miles today: 12.8
Weather: light rain

After another rainy night, I picked up my only partially wet tent, thanks to my newly acquired free tarp from a hiker box, for a small, yet important hiking victory. I was dead tired after walking 12 miles two days straight, which isn't a great feat in hiking standards, but not bad for an old guy who just spent the last 13 years in an office looking out the window.   As tired as I was, I knew I was in for another brutal day if I wanted to get to Franklin, NC to get a shower and dry my stuff.   After being pushed by 30 year-old Icarus the day before, I decided to get an early start so I could take my time, knowing he likes to get going at about noon. As it turned out, he left at 10:30, an hour after me, and caught up with me in about 2 hours, indicating he was either hiking at about twice my speed, or half my speed if I was standing still. I know I wasn't standing still however, because a tree hit me as it walked by. Yes, i was looking down when I should have been looking ahead because a limb from a Rhododendron tree whacked me across the forehead. I walked up to G-Man after forgetting I did it and he said, "Dude, are you OK?".   Just then Icarus walks up and says "Knutt, are you alright? After that, I saw Skye, a young lady from Montana and Nimble, a 21 year old competitive skier and super hiker from Minnesota. They looked at me, but weren't looking me in the eye, so I guess it looked pretty bad as blood dripped down my face. I sent a picture home and everyone got a big laugh over it. That is, once they knew I was not mangled by a mother bear.Once everyone put their phones down, prepared to call for a med-evac helicopter, we hiked toward Albert Mountain, which looked like a cliff on the map. Before we attempted the big climb, G-man and I took a snack break. I told him I had something special, and pulled a beautiful orange out of my backpack, which I'd carried all the way from Hiawassee, GA. There is something really awesome about eating fresh fruit on tbe trail. The flavor is so enhanced. It's like the best thing I ever tasted. So we chow down on sardines and the orange and we're ready to face this monster mountain.   At this point, four of us hiked together with Nimble and Icarus leading the way, and me and G-man huffing and puffing in the rear. Though they could easily smoke us down the trail, they stayed with us because we're awesome company. The climb up Albert mountain was crazy, climbing rocks with 40 pounds pulling at oir backs.   One slip and it would not be pretty, but we managed to survive one of the most dangerous parts of the trail yet.   When we got to the top, there was a fire tower and an awesome view atop the North Carolina Appalachian mountains. While we were on top of the mountain I was so tired I had no desire to walk up the steps to the tower. When Icarus asked me if I was going up, I said I would just look at his pictures when he came back down. We met a group of teachers, one of which gave me a glass of water when she heard me say I was out. I had drank more than two liters already and couldn't get enough, so that cup of water was the bomb (very good). While on top of the mountain, I noticed some sticks on the ground and saw that they were organized into numbers, which actually turned out to be the number 100. Nimble looked at his guidebook and pointed out that Albert MountIn was at 100.1 mlles from Springer Mountain, the start of the AT.   I'd reached my second milestone! Yeah, now I can go home....not!   It may not be the end, but it sure felt good after just crossing the GA-NC line a couple of days before. We continued our trek, which was a great hike downhill for several miles. Everyone was taking pictures of the beautiful scenery, and when I took a picture of some logs in the forest, Icarus asked me why I was taking a picture of logs. I simply replied "for my log book.". (Eyes roll). My feet were killing me with blisters and my body was exhausted, but I hiked the 12.8 miles to get to the road leading to Franklin. We were all spent, so Icarus, the only one of us with a charged phone, called Larry the Taxi who took us to the Micro Hotel where we would bask in a shower and sleep in a bed again.   We decided that night that a zero was in order to recuperate and refresh.