Date: 2003-05-31
From: Apple House Shelter

To: Unknown Campsite
Miles today: 17.4

Today was the worst and best hiking day of my life.We started out from Apple House Shelter, with a 17.8 mile day in mind. I was worried, because of my knee, but determined to start getting some miles in. The day began with some drizzle, and patchy rain, and my knee began to hurt from the get-go. The trail was somewhat flat for the first few miles, but this did not help. The scenery helped me get my mind off of the knee for a while, though, with boggy river walks that made me feel as if I were Tom Sawyer, headed off for another adventure on the river. I almost expected to see a little raft to float by at any second. Unfortunately, the knee pains began to supercede all thought, and I started to break down. The terrain did not appease the situation either, as we were walking on new trail, with very slick mudslides for a path. The pain got to where every step hurt, and at one point, I just sat down and started crying. I knew something was wrong, and that I would possibly have to leave the trail. I felt completely lost. I kept on, while continuing to cry on and off, and soon came to a blue blaze trail that led to Jones Falls, and a water source. I had to get water, so I threw my pack down, and hobbled down to the source. After sitting there a bit, contemplating what to do, I decided to go check out Jones Falls. I had a bad feeling that I would soon have to leave, and I at least wanted to get a few more good pictures in before I did so. When I got to Jones Falls, I was taken aback. It was a beautiful scene. As I got there, the clouds broke, and the sun started pouring down onto the falls, which just made the scenery so much more stunning. I sat down by the falls and just watched them, and listened. The rushing sound of a waterfall has always been a cathartic sound for me, and this was no different. I forgot about my knee for a while, and was soon at peace with my mind. After sitting there, taking it all in, for almost an hour, I decided to move on, and to make the shelter for the night. I felt a new energy after sitting there for a while, and became determined to keep going. After a little "talk" with my knee, which really added up to me yelling at it for a while about how it would not make me quit, I got up, walked back to the trail, threw the pack back on, and headed off. Nothing would stop me now. My knee would simply have to fall off in order for me to stop. It was odd, but I got a mad adrenaline rush inside of me, once I got moving again. It had taken me a good 6 hours to hike the almost 6 miles to the Falls, and I started moving again around mid-afternoon. I really started moving, though. I ignored the knee, and just kept going. Of course, the evening soon began to set in, and I started losing daylight. I decided that I would start looking for a place to camp once the sun started to go down, but hoped I would make it to the shelter. I kept pressing on, stopping every once in a while to yell out, in hopes of hearing my fellow hiking buds out there somewhere. None of the calls were answered though, and it started to get dark. My headlamp had stopped working at the Overmountain Shelter, so I knew I couldn't press on after dark. I resigned myself to finding a spot to camp, as the night fell, and crawled into my tent without food for the night. Reason #1 was because I was too tired to eat. Reason #2 being that I had half a nalgene left of water, and did not want to wake up dry. I'll be okay, as long as I can make it to Kincorra sometime tomorrow.