Date: 2016-02-22
From: Hughes Gap

To: Overmountain Shelter
Miles today: 11.6
Weather: light rain

I caught a ride from the Greasy Creek Friendly hostel over to Hughes Gap this morning and started up the long climb to Roan Mountain. I didn¢t see any snow at all until reaching 4,900 ft. where I started to see a few remnants of the deeper drifts here and there. A little further on the trail was mostly covered with snow, but thankfully it wasn¢t too deep.As I climbed the last few miles to the 6,285 ft. top of the mountain the slushy wet snow turned mostly into ice. The rain had melted most of the snow at this higher elevation but on the trail the packed down snow had turned to ice. I stopped to put on my carbide snow grippers which were a lifesaver for me. The last thing I want to do right now is fall on the ice and break or injure something else. When I was almost to the top I explored a side trail that led to the site of the Cloudland Hotel, a 3 story resort which was built in 1884 for ¢Pleasure seekers and hay fever sufferers¢. Folks back then traveled to the Cloudland by first taking the narrow gauge railroad to Roan Mt Station, TN where an inn provided an overnight stay. Then guests rode by carriage for 12 dusty miles on the newly constructed Carvers Gap Road. There¢s not much left of the Cloudland Hotel today. The hotel was shut down in 1904 and eventually dismantled 10 years later. There is a stone chimney a few hundred yards further along the trail but I was told that this belonged to another building, not the hotel itself. A bit further up Roan Mountain, pretty much at the top, I stopped in to see the Roan High Knob Shelter. It¢s the highest shelter on the AT at 6,249 ft. It¢s also the first shelter I¢ve seen to have a door on it. For some reason I thought that I was mostly finished dealing with snow so I decided to change into my spare set of socks. This would allow me to enjoy having mostly dry feet for the rest of the day. It did feel wonderful to have dry socks on. The downside is that it only lasted about 5 minutes until I hit the next slushy portion of the trail. The ice grippers I was wearing helped me down the ice covered pathway. In places melting snow created small streams of water that followed along the trail eating away at the ice or undermining the ice in places to create miniature ice bridges. At times the ice would crack while I was walking over a gap formed by the water eating away underneath. I grew up in a family with seven kids and I was lucky to have two younger brothers near my age to play with. When I was twelve the three of us would go down to the creek behind our house in the wintertime to entertain ourselves. We¢d walk along the ice until we found a deeper spot, usually a few feet of water covered by an inch or so of ice. The game we invented was to step, run, or slide across the ice - one at a time - without breaking through into the water. Eventually the ice would start to weaken and crack which of course increased the excitement and anticipation of the game. Eventually one of us would break through so that we were standing in about two feet of very cold water. The rules of the game (which were likely made up that day) required you to ¢Glug¢ once you were in the water. Glugging was the sound made by the water as it replaced the air inside the fur lined shoe boots that we all wore. So you had to wait until your boots were completely full of water while the two other brothers hooted and hollered. To keep the game fair and interesting, the rules then required each additional brother to take a turn at ¢Glugging¢ to complete the set. You¢d think that we¢d be outrageously cold, but the water in our boots actually warmed up after five or ten minutes and wasn¢t too bad. So that¢s what I thought about today as I walked down the North side of Roan Mountain in my wet socks and boots. By the time I descended the 1.5 miles to cross Carver¢s Gap the ice and most of the snow was behind me for the day. I saw seven hikers today! 4 NOBOs - Legend, Day Walker, David from Ireland, and Grok.1 Day hiker - Jamie who lived nearby but had hiked the AT in 1995.and 2 SOBO¢s who I passed late in the day after it had started raining.I arrived at the semi famous ¢Red Barn¢ Overmountain shelter just after dark, I think I was pushing 6:30 or so. The fog was rolling in so thick that I could see better with my headlamp off than I could with it on. I climbed the stairs to join the four NOBOs for the night who had arrived ahead of me. I can hear the rain coming down hard and heavy on the roof of the barn. I¢m glad to be warm, dry, and inside tonight.