(3/14) Progress is Bittersweet

     I feel asleep looking at the stars last night. And I woke up to a gorgeous sunrise. 

     Tyler and I packed up and we’re out of camp by 8 am. We thought we might get to Fresh Grounds for breakfast so we were motivated to make good time over the first three miles of the day. When we got to Devil Spring Gap, where Fresh Grounds was last set up, he was gone. We herd tell that he was at Sam’s Gap, about 10 miles ahead. Our motivation continued throughout the morning, but sadly we did not run into Fresh Grounds today.

      The morning passed quickly. Thankfully the rain held out and we had decent views for most of the day. The trail was relatively flat, but we still crossed over a couple 4000 foot mountains before the afternoon. 

     We stopped for lunch at Sam’s Gap around 1 pm then started heading up our first challenging mountain of the day: Big Bald. After lunch, with the more challenging uphill, we starting noticeably slowing down. We hiked 12 miles in 5 hours before lunch, leaving 8 miles for the afternoon. But these final 8 miles felt so much longer than the first 12.

     The ascent of Big Bald took a while but when we got up it was worth it.

     On the way up Big Bald I heard a twig snap to my side, but when I checked I didn’t see anything so I assumed it was a squirrel. Pretty soon I heard Tyler whisper my name so I stopped hiking. He pointed out two deer in some beach slashing about 30 feet from us.

     After Big Bald we dropped back down a couple hundred feet and stopped for a quick break at Bald Mountain Shelter. From there we quickly finished off the last 0.3 miles of the day. 

     Throughout the day we were hiking between Bear Paw and Chili Head, who were both heading for Bald Mt Shelter. Chili Head tried to give Tyler a trail name. In the hiking community it is common for people to get a nickname (called a “trail name”) suggested by another hiker based on some anecdote. Unfortunately the name Chili Head suggested for Tyler was  “Beaver.” Apparently Tyler looks like the kid from “Leave it to Beaver.“ Unsurprisingly, Tyler decided to wait for a better name to come along.

      Its pretty cool hiking 20 miles in a day. We see a lot. The woods change quickly; with different terrain, rocks, types of trees, age, amount of undergrowth and everything else. One second we can be in a wide open old hardwood forest and the next we are surrounded by thick patches of young beech trees. Then we hit a peak and walk an exposed stone face surrounded by mountains before dropping back down into the embrace of mossy pines. We cross several roads, but soon feel completely isolated when we are a couple miles back into the woods. It feels like everything is moving very quickly, but compared to the speed of vehicles on the highway we are barely moving at all.

     Progress is bittersweet. I feel like I have accomplished something when we hike over 20 miles before 5:30 pm. We continue to learn and get stronger. But I also recognize that we are leaving part of the experience behind us. We won’t be going back to most of the sections we have already hiked and we probably won’t be able to take in those woods or distant mountain views again. Yet the hike is so long, we have so much more to see. I hope that when this experience has passed I am able to look back with content and know that I enjoyed it when I had it. For now, it has been incredible and I greatly appreciate the privilege of this experience. There is a lot more to go.

     Tomorrow we will hike 16 miles to Erwin. We might stay at a hostel, as it is relatively cheap and we would get a free ride to town. We have heard that there is an all you can eat buffet in Erwin for only 8 dollars. So we have that to look forward to as well.

     It will probably rain tonight and be a little colder, in the low 40’s. However since we are over 5000 feet this temperature is about the best we could expect. Tomorrow is looking like rain most of the day as well, so it will be nice to get into a dry hostel for tomorrow night.

Goodnight.

Walker

Check out Tyler’s blog too- https://tylerat2020.blogspot.com/?m=1