Date: 2007-04-14
From: Winding Stair Gap

To: Bruningtown Gap N.C.
Miles today: 14.6

Yesterday was a beautiful day driving down to Asheville with Mom and Ty. We all spent the night at the Sleep Inn there. As we drove by Franklin this morning, we stopped at Ron Haven's Budget Inn to secure a room for the night cause the weather forecast is for strong thunderstorms beginning in the afternoon with 2 inches of rain continuing through the night. We decided to slack pack(leave most of our backpack contents in the room) from Winding Stair Gap to be picked up at either Wayah Bald or hike 4+ miles further to Burningtown Gap. At 10:30 we're back on the AT at last! Today's hike was 80% a walk in the woods, 20% foooting-focused uphills and downhills, but pretty easy going, just had to slow a bit to avoid roots and loose rocks. Started under cloudy high cloud cover, temps in low 60's. Met our first north-bound thru hiker for this trip, Band Aid, a wildlife biologist from Colorado. Band Aid is a trailjournals.com hiker so you can read more about him by putting his name into the search box if you're interested. We enjoyed his company til lunch hunger set in and he stopped for his cream cheese and bagel break. Band Aid was able to answer questions we'd had about wolves and coyotes. Since coyote howls are heard by hikers around here it was interesting to learn that wolves kill coyotes; one of the appreciated results of successful wolf repopulation efforts; when a territory is unthreated by wolf packs, coyotes will develop a more wolf-like social structure. At the stone observation tower of Wayah Bald we met a man waiting for his brother and sister-in-law he's shuttling up the AT as they dayhike(they're skipping most of the Great Smoky Park, just doing 9 miles on each side of Gatlinburg). The man doesn't hike, but he declared he's getting in plenty of reading . 200 yds down from the tower we ran across our first trail magic--brownies! Sitting on a log was a Tupperware container, taped onto the lid was a note saying "Have Fun! Wylahnater'99" ('99 means he thru-hiked the AT in 1999). We gobbled up our two--yummy! Food and positive messages are so uplifting; going out of their way to boost body and spirit trail angels are great By 3p.m. rain showers began; by 4:30 it was a steady downpour. Finished hike by 5:30- slack-packing gave us pretty good hiking speed. Because of some miscommunications about our pickup details( a long story), Ron was able to pick us up at 7:30 as darkness descended and we were feeling a little cool and damp standing at the forest road. Ron was a true tour guide, pointing out local landmarks and telling stories about the area. Highlights of our ride back to Franklin were getting to eat ramp plants(yep, Ron's sharp eyes spotted a patch growing so he stopped to pick some for us)-ramp are kin to onion family, kinda like midget leeks & used in cooking as such-tasted sweet with a slight bitterness, quite a tasty experience, and getting to see the roadside cave Eric Rudolph the abortion clinic bomber hid out in for yrs hiding out from the FBI was really neat to see. Ron drove us to Hardee's for our take-out meal; we were in our room eating at 9:15 p.m.-great ending of a fantastic day.