Date: 2004-05-24
From: greasy creek friendly hostel,nc

To: Overmountain Shelter
Miles today: 14.8
Weather: broken clouds

14.8 miles todaytenting at overmountain shelter,ncwhat a great morning. i slept well here at the greasy creek friendly hostel and now that i'm awake, "ceecee" is out in the kitchen cooking my breakfast.she put the coffee on first and i'm enjoying my coffee...and everyone knows how i like my coffee in the morning. "wolverine" of '01 has already hiked out. he left about 6:30am. big mistake because breakfast was very good. "paparazzi" stayed and had breakfast with me. i got "ceecee" to make me a cheesburger and a turkey sandwich to pack out with me for later on today. i hiked back up the .6 miles to the a.t. and was on my way north at 9:40am. i hiked the 2 miles to clyde smith shelter and stopped for more water. i almost stepped on another snake after i left there. he was only 2' long, but had a fat little body. i watched him until he was well off the trail and then hiked on. i saw over 2 dozen orange newts this morning. i stopped counting. i am always amazed when i see one of those little critters.they look like they migrated from three mile island. they only come out when it is very damp out and the forest was pretty damp this morning after the heavy rains last night. i filled up my water bottle at another good spring. i hiked on down to hughes gap and there were 3 dolls that someone left at the road crossing. one one the dolls didn't have any clothes on and someone had wrote on it's chest..."len hold me". i was thinking about how glad my name isn't len. that was a bit on the strange side.i started climbing roan mountain and the breeze picked up. it turned from mostlycloudy to mostly sunny and the breeze really made it feel alot cooler. i stoppedat a nice overlook about 1/2 way up the mountain and sat down and ate the turkeysandwich for lunch. you couldn't ask for a better place to eat. after about 1/2 hour, i started walking back up the mountain. when i got to the top, i went up to the highest shelter on the a.t. it isroan high knob shelter and it's 6285' in elevation. i went to get more water, but the spring wasn't running very much. i hiked on down to carvers gap and ate my cheeseburger that i had packed out. i love that kind of food on the trail. it seems to keep my energy level higher. the forest on roan mountain was beautiful. i love the high forest with the spruce trees. there is a strong smell of spruce, especially when it's damp. it reminds me of a little pillow that "frogcaller" had given me and i keep it in my truck to remind me of the forest when i'm not hiking. she ground up spruce tips and sewed them into a small pillow(she called it a sache or something like that). from carvers gap i hiked on up to roundbald. i am out of the forest and can see all the mountains around me. it is niceto get out of the green corridor every once in a while, so you can see everything in the distance. the breezes were even stronger out here in the open. i hiked on down to engine gap and then right back up to jane bald. i'm really enjoying hiking in the open right now. i kept thinking back to last winter when i was hiking with "dr doolittle", "underpants", "rainbow slick", "goosebump" and myself through this area and "goosebump" got blown about 20' off the trail and i went over and helped her back. it was just above freezing and raining hard, changing back and forth from freezing rain to rain. it was blowing 50 mph steady and gusting up to 70mph. there was 6 to 12" of snow on the ground already. where i'm going tomorrow over hump mountain, i hiked over that 2 years ago and it was blowing 70mph sustained winds and gusting to 90 mph. the fog was so thick you couldn't see 10'. i'm hoping to finally see what is around this area. i hear it's beautiful, but with the nasty weather i've been in here, i've never seen it. 3:50pm i'm sitting on top of grassy ridge mountain. i've got a good friend who got her trail name of "grassy ridge" because she acidentally missed theturnoff for the a.t. and climbed this mountain. i can see now that i'm up here that it was a fortunate mistake....it is absolutely breathtaking up here. good job "grassy ridge", because of you i get to be in this beautiful place. i've got the whole world to myself up here. i left there after about an hour and i even took some pictures. i haven't been taking that many pictures anymore because i have so many from other hikes, but i had to take some up there because it was so beautiful. i hiked back to the a.t. and hiked to stan murray shelter and just took a quick break. i hiked on to here and have set my tent up out in a field overlooking a beautiful valley where i'm planning on watching the sun come up in the morning. there are 6 other hikers here tonight, but they are al staying in the shelter and i'm tenting a ways from here. there is "paparazzi", "underhill", "knuckles", "swedish","shannon" and "buick". this is the first day in quite a whilethat i didn't get rained on. a little hummingbird came up to see what was going on while i was eating. this has been my best day on the trail for this thru hike and that is realy saying something because i've had some fantastic days out here.