Date: 2007-04-03
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Miles today: 0.0

Well what can I say, I didn't hike the AT, at the last second I decided to hike the Art Loeb Trail with some friends and part of me is proud of the accomplishment as this was a bitch of a trail, but the difficulty pretty much ruined the enjoyment. It was more of an uphill trail than anything else and this coupled with the poor trail markings made me question my enjoyment of backpacking by the end of the first day. I was supposed to be hiking with my buddy, Little Bear, and another guy, Takoda. Little Bear ended up bailing after the first two miles due to a stomach virus, and so that left Takoda and I to make the push to meet Phreak who was coming from the other end of the trail, little did we know that Phreak also bailed due to an exploded Platypus, but I'll get to that later. We started from the campground end of the trail which is the more difficult end to start from due to the quick elevation gain. We got up to around 6000ft and stayed there for most of the second half of the day. The trail goes through some wilderness areas and follows existing smaller trail meaning that sometime in the early afternoon we got lost for the first time. Luckily, we ended up on a trail that paralelled and joined up with the Art Loeb further ahead. After finding the trail again we continued on to a parking area where the trail followed a road before jogging back into the woods where it joined the Mountains to Sea trail. We were trying to get to a bald where we were supposed to camp with Phreak and thought we were pretty close. After climbing some more we came to a junction with a blue blaze. This is where I will say beware of the NG map as it does not show the blue blaze trail, leading us to believe we were supposed to continue to follow the Mountains to Sea Trail...OOPS!!! From what I can figure we should have taken the blue blaze, but we didn't and continued on. We ended up hiking into the night by now figuring we were lost but waiting to hit a road to confirm which we did around 9pm when we came out on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Takoda managed to flag down a car being driven by a guy who hiked the trail quite a bit and he agreed to take us back to the trail where we hiked for another hour before finding a suitable camping spot. All in all we ended up hiking about 18 miles and 13 hours on a first day, entirely too much in both categories. We knew we would finish the next day and so our hopes were high as we cut about 4 miles off of the hike due to the hitch back to the trail. According to the elevation it should have been an easy day...but elevation maps LIE!!! That and the fact that this trail should have been named the PUD trail as that was what it was all about with zero switchbacks. The day got hotter and water was not easily found as we continued back to our cars. The last two miles were hell as we had both run out of water. I finally took off and left Takoda behind. While making my way down the last mountain I could see the river taunting me with it's cold water as I saw picnickers out on the weekend also taunting me with their cold drinks and food. I finally made it back and that is when we found out that Phreak also bailed. Being mildly dehydrated I ran into town to get us some Gatorade and arrived back at the parking area to find Takoda. Afte a quick lunch at Mickey D's we were off for our respective homes. In closing, this trail is not for those looking for a leisurely hike, it was rougher than any section of the AT I have hiked in the south, and people should also be prepared to get lost at least once on the trail. I can say I hiked it now, but if I never see this trail again...it will be too soon. For the time being I can look at it as a test for what I can handle and take on, helping to make the AT this summer a little easier on my mind.