Date: 2009-04-16
From: Nolichucky River, TN 

To: Deep Gap, NC/TN 
Miles today: 12.1

Cell noneOG notesIt's 4 am and I'm now typing this. I had left my glasses in my pack that is outside and couldn't see to type last evening. I just got back in the tent from a late night visit to the dark and I grabbed them while I was out.The weather is nice out this evening and night; the sky is full of stars. It was so nice to have beautiful weather to hike in yesterday. We realized we are very much in a winter hiking mode. We are anxious while hiking and keep pushing hard to get to our destination. The anxiety is over reaching our camping spot to set up the tent before the rain, snow, or whatever starts. Even today as we knew it would be nice all evening we found ourselves rushing as we hiked. The weather this year is so much different than 2006. Back then we had more sunny days and the temperatures were warmer. I hiked differently and used more of the daylight without the anxiety we're feeling now.We passed a bald called Beauty Spot today where we finally had a nice view. I remember Beauty Spot from the 2006 hike. I was up there Easter Sunday. DieHard and I stopped there for lunch, a day hiker ("AT Hugger") shared some of his lunch with us and then we moved on. Oh yes, I also remember seeing a fire on the hillside in Erwin. Speaking of fire, the trail heading up to Beauty Spot was right in the middle of an area that had a fire. There were a lot of charred trees and there weren't many leaves on the ground. I know The Forest Service uses fire to control the underbrush in the forest. They set controlled fires to clear the ground of dead materials before it builds up. By doing this they prevent the underbrush from getting too thick. Thick underbrush becomes fuel for major forest fires. With plentiful fuel and the right wind conditions forest fires easily get out of hand. The controled burns are done when there is no wind so the fires burn slowly and as the na! me implies controlled.We're camped tonight in a remote spot. We're near a water source in a flat area. We picked this location from the handbook because it mentioned the water and that it was a camping spot. We're next to the forest road and in fact a jeep went by last evening. The next shelter is on the other side of a difficult mountain so we decided to stop here. We'll tackle that mountain in the morning.We plan our days by distance and shelters. We usually try to make it to the shelters, but tonight we planned on tenting. The shelters are smaller here and the pack of hikers is large; we figured we wouldn't have gotten in a shelter anyway. We are heading for a hostel tomorrow, it's 11 miles from here and right in our range. It also sets us up for the next days hike. That day we'll tackle Roan Mountain which I remember as being very difficult. By staging and planning we'll put the climbs earlier in the day and get them over with while we still are strong from our night of rest. This planning and advanced knowledge for the terrrain will help us have a better hike.C6 notesToday's hike was very hard...nearly all uphill. It was a beautiful sunny day, so that was nice. What added to today's difficulty was that we are carrying food for 4 or 5 days, so our packs are heavy. I'm looking forward to warm weather so we can get rid of the weight of our cold weather stuff. I've found I no longer have a "feeling" for distance. In the beginning I had an idea of how far we had hiked. Now I have no idea at all. Now I guess distance by the length of time we have been hiking. We are averaging 2 miles per hour, so if we plan to hike 16 miles, we can pretty much count on it taking about 8 hours to hike the 16 miles.Then we run into obstacles like we did first thing this morning. We left the hostel around 9:30am, and as we crossed the bridge we saw a train slow down and stop before it went across the road in town. Unfortunately, it was stopped where the AT crosses the railroad track. When we got to that crossing point, we had to wait for the train to move. We discussed our options and decided to wait for the train to move instead of expending energy trying to get around it (since we had no idea how long it would be stopped - we figured that by the time we tried to go back to the road and go by the train it would start moving). We waited an HOUR!! Just before it started to move a young couple came by and decided to go between the cars to get to the other side. We didn't want to take the chance, so we waited. Within 5 minutes of their going between the cars the train started to move...they were very lucky it wasn't just a couple minutes sooner! Out of curiosity, we counted the cars as they passed...92! The overall length of the train was well over 100 cars because the front of the train was quite a ways away in town.We are camping tonight because we're between shelters. There's quite a community here with us. OG counted 12 tents and 16 people here. We knew most of the folks, and it's nice to meet others. One guy ("Hammock") has a very small guitar with him and has been playing some nice music.There's a guy here ("Long Haul") with a video camera. I may have mentioned someone else with one a while back (I don't remember if I did). Someone has given 6 hikers video cameras to tape things during their hikes. He hopes to put together a 6-part series on the AT and have it be shown on some TV channel. He'd like to have The Discovery Channel show it at some time. That would be cool! We gave our permission to be filmed if it so happens that we get caught on any of the tapes.We've met some folks who also do Trail Journals. In case you want to check out any of their trail journals, and/or see if there are photos of us on other's trail journals, a couple of the folks who I know keep journals are: Bison, Amy Erskine (Sport), Shane and Angie (now "Half Moon" and "Sunbeam"), and Dulcimer Dave (I forget his wife's trail name).It was wonderful to take our time setting up our tent this evening because we weren't freezing or wet. It is getting colder now, but we're comfortable in our tent and sleeping bags for the night. I'll write about some of the trail names of the folks here tonight another time. I've written quite a bit already and I'm ready to get my hands in my sleeping bag to warm them.Old Goat & Check Six