Thursday, June 20. I’ve been backpacking for forty years. But I’ve never gone on a solo trip. That changes tomorrow. I am packed and ready to head out in the morning to the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area.
During the last forty years I’ve hiked hundreds (thousands?) of miles, mostly with my husband. I’ve always said that I wasn’t interested in hiking alone, that it wouldn’t be any fun without someone to share it with.
Last weekend I looked at the calendar and realized three things: next Friday is the summer solstice, I have a three-day weekend, and I have a weekend alone. Four things–and I want to go to Mount Rogers for an overnight hike. All by myself.
My planned route is a loop, about 10-12 miles total. I’ll take the main trail up from the parking lot, head south on the AT to Rhododendron Gap, take the Pine Mountain Trail back to the AT, continue southbound to Scales, over Stone Mountain, down to the bottom, then camp somewhere along one of the creeks for the night. The next morning I’ll walk past the Wise Shelter, and then up and over to head back to the car, taking the trail back down to the backpacker parking lot.
Friday, June 21. When I drove up to the entrance station at Grayson Highlands State Park, the ranger had two questions: you know about the bear warnings, right? And, you know about the weather forecast? Yes to both. This could be an interesting hike.
Since last summer the Mount Rogers area has had intermittent bear problems at the shelters and along Wilburn Ridge. They’ve installed bear boxes at these locations. Hikers are encouraged to use them or bear canisters for food storage.
There had been severe thunderstorms Thursday night and the forecast was the same for Friday night. The weather up there is always volatile and can change from warm sunshine to cold, windy rain in minutes. You’ve got to be prepared for all of it.
I left the car at 9:30 AM with a 22.5 pound pack. We’ve done this hike so many times that it felt completely familiar, but also completely new and exciting, all at the same time. As I crossed the parking lot, I saw my first bird of the hike, an indigo bunting singing in the top of a small shadbush tree. An excellent omen.
It was really windy as I climbed, sometimes sunny, sometimes ominously cloudy. A bit chilly in the wind without sun. Absolutely gorgeous. Summer meadow grasses and wildflowers, blackberries and mountain laurel in bloom, the Christmas tree fragrance of the Fraser firs. It was so much fun to be out there! Life’s been a bit busy lately and I haven’t had enough trail time in the last year or so. Just breathing the air up there was good for my soul in a way I’d almost forgotten.
I stopped for lunch on Pine Mountain in a little grove of evergreen trees, trying to get out of the wind. There was a jumble of rocks inside, so it seemed like an ideal spot. I was clearly not the first to think it so–there was also a lot of evidence that the horses had spent a lot of time there…
The trade-off for being out of the wind was also being out of the sun, so I didn’t stop for long. By the time I got to Scales the wind had died down a bit and the sun was out for good. I took a break just to sit and be there. And watch the cows.
On the way down Stone Mountain I stopped at a spring along the trail for water. While I was there I met a northbound thru hiker from Germany. For the second time that day. She stopped to talk because she recognized that we’d passed each other earlier in the day as well and found that a bit puzzling, until I explained that I was hiking a loop.
As I continued down the trail, I started thinking about my camping spot for the night. We’ve camped before at a spot that we call the old homesite. There’s a small clearing, a spring, and some overgrown household junk on the other side of trail. When I got there I decided that it was too early in the day to stop and that would leave me a longer hike in the morning than I wanted (since I had to hike out, drive home, then pick up my husband at the airport the next afternoon).
My next two stops were along the creeks at the bottom. At the first spot there’s a nice campsite under a tree. Unfortunately the only flat spot to pitch a tent had a gigantic pile of horse manure. Sigh. I looked around a bit in the more open grassy areas, but every flattish spot was either soggy or full of blackberry brambles. The next spot a little further down the trail was just too soggy. So on I went.
Finally, like Goldilocks, I found a spot that was just right. Out of sight of the trail, close–but not too close–to the creek, flat enough to pitch a tent, and high enough to be dry.
I had everything set up by 5 PM, so I had the rest of the afternoon and evening to just enjoy being out. I had brought my knitting, of course, so I worked on knitting a hat and just watched the world go by. There were lots of birds, a few deer, but no hikers anywhere nearby. I walked around a bit, exploring the area and looking for a place to secure my food bag overnight. I made dinner and just relaxed, enjoying being out on the longest day of the year.
Saturday, June 21. I was up early, as soon as it began to get light. I retrieved my food, made coffee and breakfast, and watched the morning. My company was a chestnut-sided warbler in the maple nearby. I sat for a few minutes meditating, and realized that this entire trip is an exercise in mindfulness and presence.
It had been an interesting evening. I first heard thunder at about 10:30. When I looked outside, the sky was full of stars to the east. Not so much in the west. I had a few showers at about 11:30, then things were quiet until about 3:30, when the thunder and lightning woke me up. The rain started coming down hard after the first thunderclap. All was dry inside–so far so good.
I started counting the time between lightning and thunder. Ten seconds. Then eight. Four. Two. Then four again and I resumed breathing. The storm moved off and the rest of the night was quiet.
I took my time breaking camp and I was on the trail before 8 AM. Within ten minutes I had crossed the last creek and passed the Wise Shelter and the 20 or more tents and hammocks pitched nearby. I guess the bear warnings have concentrated the hikers near the bear box locations.
It took about an hour to get to the top of the ridgeline and the trail back to the backpacker parking area. I stopped fairly frequently, mostly because I wanted to prolong my time out and enjoy the glorious morning. I saw deer and turkeys, and heard a hermit thrush, a wood thrush, and plenty of chestnut-sided warblers.
Would I do this again? Absolutely. I discovered that hiking alone allows me to focus entirely on the experience, on the world around me, on how I feel and what I need–when to stop, eat, or drink. I also saw and heard more birds and other animals, perhaps because I was quieter alone or maybe because I was paying more attention. I returned home restored and energized, ready to check my calendar for another opportunity to spend some time in the backcountry.
DF: Today we started and ended in the same place–our cabin at Blood Mountain Cabins–but we left on foot and returned by car. We slackpacked from Neel Gap, over the infamous Blood Mountain, and on to Woody Gap (10.8 miles) where we got a shuttle to the Hiker Hostel, picked up our car, drove to Dahlonega for beer and sandwiches, then drove back to the cabin. Pretty slick.
We stopped after about an hour–we were pretty close to the top— for a drink and snack. There we met Nemo, an ultralight hiker, tuning up for a CDT hike by doing 35-50 miles a day on the AT. Nemo was a small, flamboyant young man with a ridiculously tiny pack. We very much enjoyed talking with him. As we walked on, talking about how to reduce our pack weight, we met another young man, who said that Nemo had passed him like he was standing still earlier this morning. He was wearing a Reagan-Bush 1984 trucker hat, in what I hope was an ironic statement–hiking a National Scenic Trail wearing a hat supporting the last president to gut the Interior Department. Somehow I doubt that he was aware of the irony…
BC: 
DF: The just-past-full moon rose orange last night and there was a haze around it when I got up at 2 AM. The weather was changing–a cold front bought in more moisture, a few clouds, and slightly cooler temperatures. We had some clouds part of the day, but it never rained.
At the top of Cow Rock was a huge granite outcrop, with lots of open space and another view of the valley. We stopped there for lunch and were immediately beset by swarms of very tiny gnats. It was also time for sunscreen, as the clouds had completely disappeared.
We arrived at Neels Gap at 2:40 (10.5 miles in 7 hours). We’ve found that we can average 1.5 miles per hour, including breaks, over the course of a day. We picked up our food box, and an extra bottle of hand sanitizer, and headed down the road to Blood Mountain Cabins, our home for the night.
Our cabin has a great room and a bedroom downstairs, and a sleeping loft. We chose the loft because it was a nicer, larger space. The cabins are rustic–ours has three deer heads on the wall and a porch overlooking the mountains. We’re also in the end of a switchback in the highway, so there’s lots of road noise.
At this point we had a choice: do the last 30 miles of the AT in two days (doable, but long days), or hike the 10 miles to Woody Gap and get off the trail there. At Woody we will both have completed the entire Georgia AT, as we hiked from the falls to Woody in 2003. We decided we’d rather have a long weekend at home for the holiday, so we got the cabin for a second night and made plans to slackpack over Blood Mountain to Woody Gap the next day. 
DF: We were up and packed and having breakfast at the hotel around 7:15. We were the only ones there–the hotel was not busy and it was pretty early. We checked out and headed up the road to Betty’s, a small grocery store where we hoped to find a ride back up to the trail. We were walking through through the main commercial area of Helen, full of German-themed t-shirt stores and jerky stores (alpaca? seriously?), when an old Toyota SR5 pulled up and asked if we needed a ride.
About a quarter mile before we got to Low Gap Shelter, we stopped
And then we were at the top, by about 4:30, making it 10.7 miles in an eight hour day (with lots of stops). It was not a bad climb–it took less than an hour even with the stops. We found a gorgeous campsite right at the top, with views east and west.
BC: 
Back on the trail we continued the last four or five hundred foot climb of Tray, followed by a long but well graded descent to Indian Grave Gap. Along the way we stopped at the “Cheese Factory” site for lunch. While we were eating, a northbound thru hiker stopped to join us for lunch, eating her dry cold ramen noodles — actually a fairly common hiker meal (I suggested next time she spread the bare ramen with peanut butter). She is from Boston and is hiking home, and we talked about her experiences so far on the trail. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the time with her. 
We got to the brand new Holiday Inn Express in Helen by 2:30pm, where we had an Executive Suite with a jacuzzi tub and a nice little balcony. Man, I felt bad totally trashing that room — kidding, of course, we kept all the gear out in the tile hallway and opened the tent bag on the balcony to shake out all the leaves and trail dirt. We got showered and changed, then dropped our hiking clothes into the washing machine in the hotel and went to the local Alpine Beer store for some great local craft beer. Er, except it turns out there’s not really any such thing — the beer store had a very scant selection of beer, so we ended up with a sixpack of a pale ale from New Belgium. We took that back to the room and put it in the fridge, then went to Dollar General for resupply, as it was right next door to the hotel.
We spent an hour soaking our aching muscles in the tub before an early bedtime. The only thing I would change about the hotel would be to have the windows open for the cool spring night air.
DF: Thirteen tough miles today. We left our campsite this morning at 8:10 and arrived at Sassafras Gap at about 5:30. Lots of big climbs in between.
Lots of ups and downs in the next 4.5 miles, ending with a very steep down to Dick’s Creek Gap. There were picnic tables at the road crossing, which was nice for lunch and some people-watching.
BC: 
There were easily a dozen hikers here already, as the gap has many campsites and a good water supply. I went for water (very steeply downhill for a change) while Dragonfly set up camp again and made dinner. On the way back up from the water source I met a young thru-hiker heading down with her pack, which I suggested she leave up top — the side trail to water was truly exceptionally steep, even for the AT.
DF: We’re camped on a little knob above a stream, waiting on sunset and listening to piliated woodpeckers. It’s a good bit warmer than yesterday, and a whole lot warmer than we expected, so it’s quite pleasant sitting out.
BC: 
DF: Our first day of our spring break adventure–hiking the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. We were on the road by 9:45 heading west on I-40. We drove straight through to Sylva, NC, where we stopped at LuLu’s for lunch just before 1 PM. Ken had the beef enchiladas special and I had rice noodles with chicken, veggies, and peanut sauce. Both were quite good. We’d eat there again, or at the place we went last May, on our next time through.
BC: 
Miles 2 Go 