The Benadryl that Alice sent us has been put to use. I’ve decided to up the anti to two at night and I am able to fall asleep and only get up once through the night. The only down side is that my bladder is just as active so it’s critical that I sleep on the uphill side of Bunny so I don’t have to lay in a puddle.
We have a fairly long day planned for us today with the first 8 miles being nearly 2000’ of climbing. Luckily, I slept well last night. If we had today to do yesterday, I’d be dead (or whining a lot which is not my normal MO). We had some nice vistas on the way up Roan Mountain.
Stickers and Lady Bug tend to take a lot of breaks and enjoy the day. If they see something off to the side of the trail, they don’t hesitate to investigate it. Because of this, we are able to hike with them if we keep moving, otherwise, they would be way ahead of us. We passed them just before we reached the summit of Roan Mountain and got to the former site of the Cloudland Hotel. All that remains is a partial foundation and an old chimney.
We pushed on through Ashland Gap and climbed up to Roan High Knob Shelter where we ran into Sleeves again. This being Easter, Sleeves took the day off of hiking to quietly reflect. This is also the first fully enclosed shelter we have come across. While I was getting water to make us some hot tea for lunch, Stickers and Lady Bug caught up with us. We spent over an hour recovering from the climb, eating lunch, and talking. Another member of the front edge of the March bubble (just Nick from Iowa) showed up and had a quick bite before heading on. He is averaging nearly 17 miles/day and wants to get his average up to over 20 so he didn’t stay long.
Now that our climbing was over (for the most part—there’s always more climbing) we could kind of keep up with Stickers and Lady Bug. It was all downhill to Carvers Gap. As soon as we stepped out on to the road, a Jeep pulled up and asked us if we were thru-hiking. We talked with Josh and Casey a bit and they gave us some M&Ms. My mom always told me not to take candy from strangers which doesn’t apply here since M&Ms are the life force of thru-hiking.
Since we still had about 7 miles to go for the day and there were so many cars present, we thought there had to be a trash can where we could lighten our loads. It only made sense since there was a bathroom. I gave Stickers all of my trash and he went in search of a can, but there wasn’t one (which explains why the area was so trashy). Bunny said she would take care of it.
She toe tackled the first person that passed and started shoving the bag of garbage in her face. Her parents ran over and said they would take the garbage, just please get off of the girl. I know Bunny will have a completely different interpretation of events, but Stickers did say “Man, that was f’d up. I would have just carried the trash.” You be the judge.
We were totally unprepared for what we saw next. We had no idea why there were so many people at the gap but we soon found out. We climbed a few hundred feet up to the first of three balds we were to pass today. It was simply incredible. We weren’t even up to the top of Round Bald but we had 360 degree views of the Appalachians. These views more than made up for all the effort we have spent to date to get here. We still had two more balds (Jane and Grassy Ridge) and the views just kept getting better. We were in sensory overload.
It took us a couple of hours to traverse the balds—partly due to our gawking, but also partly due to our near celebrity status as through hikers. People would come up to us, get a whiff, back away, and ask if we were hiking all the way to Maine. People even asked to have their pictures taken with us (I later found out Lady Bug was offering $5 to anyone who could stand next to us for 2 minutes without passing out and could document it with a photo, but a photo request is a photo request). People kept asking if we were hiking the AT like Bill Bryson and we would politely say “No, we are actually hiking the entire trail and not just 1/3 of it.”
It was still 3.7 miles to Overmountain Shelter and it was past 5. Bunny and I have already hiked after dark twice on this trip, but it’s not a preferred event for us. The four of us have been known to cover nearly 3 miles in a single hour if it leads to a hostel, but were we up to the “4 mile for an iconic shelter” challenge?
The first shelter we came to was one of the smallest we have seen—4 people would be cramped. We stopped for some water and a snack. Bunny irritatingly reminded everyone that I had received some M&Ms back at Carvers Gap so I was forced to share them equally between all of us. I did all the work of taking them and carrying them for 4 miles and now was forced to give up “my precious.” I’m a big man. I turned my head so no one could see me weep.
The final 1.9 mile I tried to run. To everyone else, it appeared to be a slow, awkward walk. I was giving it my all thinking that I was finally making tracks only to turn around and see everyone bunched up behind me. I guess I’ve got a ways to go before I get my hikers legs (I’ve got the appetite—in fact, I’ve always had it).
We got water on the way to the barn. We saw a bunch of tents set up out front and were worried it might be full. It’s rumored to be able to sleep 50. It was a group of young, fast, red shirted crew members (so I didn’t get any of their names) that wanted to camp out under the stars to take advantage of the views. When we got to the barn, only “just Nick from Iowa” was there.
We took one of the open platforms on the east side to take full advantage of the morning sunrise. The second floor could easily sleep 50 itself. The best part about the refurbished barn, though, was not its size. The best part was that it had a privy. Ever since Hot Springs, we have all had to dig holes for relief. I think this is why my weight loss progress has come to a near halt.
With dinner complete and chores all done, we went to bed. Stickers was the last one up and he saw a mouse eyeing “just Nick” with devious intent. To ward off any further mouse encounters, Stickers tried to protect us by stuffing toilet paper all around the platform. It may have helped because all the paper was gone in the morning, but I had my second mouse on head encounter in the night.
EFG