Date: 2014-03-29
From: Erwin Tennessee

To: Roan Mountain, Tennessee
Miles today: 50.3
Weather: overcast clouds

I did not end up staying an extra day in Erwin. Instead I hiked on with Green Bean and the rest of the crew to the first shelter which was under 5 miles. These miles were probably the hardest yet for me. Not because of the terrain but because my shin was hurting so much. The trail follows the Nulachucy river for most of the way. It would have been absolutely gorgeous had I not been focused on the ground in front of my feet. I did make it to the shelter where I set up a spot for myself in the shelter and played bananagrams and cards with Flashlight, Jolly, and some others who showed up. It was a really fun evening! In the morning I woke up and as usual was going to relieve myself, as I put my on weight on my left foot I almost collapsed. I started to cry thus was the first time on the trail! I sat back down and reevaluated the situation. I knew u needed to move so I just got up and did what I needed to do. While I packed my belongings I decided I had 3 options one was to backtrack to Erwin and take a zero, my second was to walk 6 miles to the next road crossing and get a shuttle back to town, or I could just take it easy and keep on hiking, but maybe smaller miles. I decided to keep heading north but make my decision at the road. This was probably my best decision yet! Once I started to hike I felt a lot better. My leg still hurt but it was manageable. At about mile 3 I saw a sign on a tree and about shout out in joy! It was fresh grounds and the leap frog cafe!! (For those who don't know he is the kindest man who provides trail magic along the trail). It couldn't have come at a better time for me. He gave me banana pancakes and fresh fruit. Later I hot home fries and a hot dog!I almost tented for the night where he was but decided to push on. There was a shelter 9 miles away and I was determined to make it. In a little while I caught up to Flashlight (another female hiker) and we hiked together for the rest if the day. She was going to push for a 20 mile day, but we decided to walk together till I parted. It was so much fun to hike with her! She is the first girl I've really spent time with other than a few hellos. We talked for hours. In fact I was having such a good time I decided to push to a hostel 6 miles after the shelter just to spend more time with Flashlight. I figured I could take a zero there the next day and rest my leg. That was a great plan... except I never made it to the hostel. Flashlight stopped to camp where jolly tent was set up, so I pushed on into the dark alone. I'm not a fan of the dark and night hiking scares me, I figured I shouldn't be more than 2 miles away from the gap where the shelter is so I'm golden... I hiked and hiked and heard all kinds if noises while the wind blew ever stronger. After about an hour of hiking on my own I decided to bunker down in my tent next to the trail as I had no idea where I was.i knew I was on the AT but the terrain was not matching what I thought I should be hiking. I was almost out of water which meant I couldn't cook and my body was shaking due to me overworking it. After eating some snacks I tried to sleep. I was laying there for hours.i thought a tree would fall and squash me. I think I fell asleep around 2 o'clock. At 7 I woke up to the wind still blowing but I was awake and alive so I felt pretty luck. I was expecting the rain to come any minute so I packed up and started to hike. I took about 5 steps and found the sign to the next shelter! This was frustrating and amazingly awesome at the same time! I practically ran down the trail to the shelter where I found Straight Ahead Bob, Big Mac, and Tenacity. Seeing familiar faces after such a scary night was amazing! I sat and smiled at them for about an hour. Than I went to get water and hiked on. I made sure to ask them where they were staying so I didn't have to sleep alone again! After the 22nd mile day my leg was in really bad shape but there wasn't much I could do right than. I knew I had to make it over Roan Mountain that day. As the rain still hadn't hit I started a mantra about getting over the mountain before the rain, surprisingly it worked! Roan mountain is am amazing climb! It was beautiful. The view were spectacular. The trail was really icy and snowy but as I have hiked on worse I was just thankful it wasn't raining as well. I made it to the shelter that I had planned which was something else! Overmountain shelter is an old barn converter into a shelter the sleeping area is on the top floor while you can cook down stairs. We ended up having a full house as a large (loud and kind of disrespectful) group of section hikers came in just as the rain started. I tried to get an early nights sleep but didn't really end up sleeping much at all that night. I knew I only had 10ish more miles to go to make it to the town or Roam Mountain tn. On the morning I woke to my sleeping bag bring really wet due to rain blowing in during the night and the mind and rain still howling outside. I packed up and left to get my miles in. I had to cross two balds. Basically it was raining sideways all day long. I'm sure there are amazing views from the balds hut all I could see was my tain gear smashed up against my face and 20 feet of cloud. All in all it was not my favorite day.. I was able to ignore my leg though for most of the day with was nice. After traversing the balds and getting below tree level the wind settled a little and I was able to say a nice goodbye to North Carolina as I passed the Tennessee boarder for the last time at Dolls flat. I made it to the road where I hitched a ride with some trail maintainers to the hostel .3 miles down the road. Mountain Harbor is an amazing place! I spent a zero there, but I will tell you all about that in the next post.P.s. thus is my second time writing thus as my phone erased it the first time... This time it isn't as exciting as it was the first time... sorry