Spring has Sprung — Adventures With Samson-The-Bear

On 4/12, I did 20.7 miles to No Business Knob Shelter. On 4/13, I did 10.5 miles to Curly Maple Gap after resupplying in Erwin, TN. On 4/14, I did 17.2 miles and spent the night in an apple orchard. On 4/15, I did 20.2 miles in a crazy rain storm to an old barn at Overmountain. On 4/16, I did 18.8 to mountaineer shelter. On 4/17, I did 20.3 to Pond flats. On 4/18, I did 23.1 miles just south of Tennessee 91. On 4/19, I did 23 miles to Damascus. On 4/20, I took my first zero in Damascus. On 4/21, I did 18.5 miles to Beech mountain and camped out on the bald.

Well it was inevitable that Proudfoot and I would eventually split. He needs to get to Damascus to meet up with some people and will be doing some serious high mile days. We released two doves as a sign of our friendship when we said our goodbyes. I think I'm going to slow down my mileage a little bit and smell the flowers. Spring has sprung at the lower elevations and it is beautiful. There are some hill sides that have such an intense aroma of flowering buds its like walking with a rose up to your nose as you traverse the mountain side.

So far the section between Hot Springs and Erwin has been the best section of trail yet. Maybe I like it since it is finally starting to warm up, but also the views have been amazing, there is a diversity in the landscape from fields and balds to forrest and exposed ridgelines. On 4/11 I spent a majority of the day just walking through forests of wild flowers, I'm not going to lie it was pretty much amazing.

In Hot Springs I saw a bumper sticker that said "No Rain, No Pain, No Maine". Right now I would trade a little extra pain for a little less rain, the past two days have been a washout. The rain stopped for an hour or so on 4/14 as I went up Unaka mountain. At the top of the mountain was a dense spruce forrest. The trees were so tightly packed in, no sunlight hit the forrest floor and the thick layer of pine needles made the whole area void of sound. It felt like I was walking through a Brothers Grimm scene, just waiting for something to jump out at me. On 4/15 temperatures dropped as I went up Roan mountain. I believe Roan is an old word that means shitty trail design. The entire trail turned into a cold and fast moving stream, I'm pretty sure I saw a trout on the trail. The wind and rain made the day difficult, you had to keep your head down and body hunched over just to keep from getting blown around. I was able to crank out some miles, but unfortunately wasn't able to take in all of my surroundings; on the plus side I was able to find an old barn to sleep in and get out of the rain so it was a pretty fun end to a water logged day.

As I am winding my way towards Virginia I have been playing a game called "Is it wind, or is it a waterfall" . As I go over a ridge I listen for a rushing sound and try to figure out if I am hearing the wind, or an upcoming waterfall. I had no idea there were so many waterfalls on the trail. I have probably past one or two a day for the past week. I cannot wait for the air temperature to get a little bit warmer and I will be able to take a few more showers along the trail.

On 4/18 I woke up at 5:30a on top of Pond Mountain. The next 6 miles of the trail were closed to everyone except AT thru hikers because of high levels of bear activity. I thought this would be a great chance to finally wrestle a bear (I have already wrestled a lion and a tiger, and just need a bear for the trifecta). I hit the the trail by 6:15a and slowly and quietly walked down the mountain. I ended up going the entire 6 miles without seeing anything. By lunch time I stopped by a stream where two other hikers were refilling their water supply. After talking with them, I found out they had camped about 200 yards north of of me and hit the trail by 6:00a. They saw 5 bears, and one of them even came crashing down in front of them. Next time I'll have to get up a little bit earlier. The bears won this round but I'll be back.

The constant heavy rain definitely slowed me down and threw a wrench in my supply logistics. My next resupply was Damascus, and I was going to walk into there two meals short, but that's the price you pay when you are trying to save weight and plan your movements perfectly. I was with another older hiker (I will not mention his name at this time) who was in worst shape than I was. He was a day and a half short of food because of the storms. As we were walking down one of the mountain sides to a gap I offered to split what remaing food I had with him and just push through it. He thanked me for the offer, but said he was going to get a resupply at the gap. I was confused since there wasn't anything near this gap except a trail head. When we got to the gap there were about five cars full of day hikers. He wanted to have lunch at the trail head so we sat down next to a fence. I pulled out my food bag and started to look for my lunches. I looked over at him and saw him pull out a jar of peanut butter. He then picked up a leaf and smeared the peanut butter on it, gazed at, sighed loudly , and then started to eat it. I knew exactly what he was doing, and did everything I could to not die laughing. When he started to chew on the leaf the trail head went silent, and then moments later every day hiker was reaching into their bags to pull out food to give to him (to be fair, day hikers normally hike for 6 hours but carry two days of food on them). He had probably been given enough food to make it to Maine. I'm not sure if he is a genius or a con artist (probably both) but it was by far the funniest thing I have seen on the trail.

The weather turned for the worst again as I made my approach to Damascus. I had originally planned on getting into Damascus 4/20 morning, but a nasty front rolled in and was dumping rain on me so I decided to get in late on 4/19 instead. I divided the food I had left into two and ate a big breakfast on 4/18 and 4/19. The freezing rain made it too cold to stop on my push to Damascus so I just kept moving and only stopped to refill water and to setup camp. On the outskirts of Damascus we crossed into Virginia (on the AT Virginia is 556 miles long, which is longer than Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee combined). I believe the AT is getting higher than normal rain fall, as two large trail bridges after Damascus were washed down the river.

I have walked 469 miles without a full day off and was excited to take my first zero in Damascus. In town I switched out my cold gear with my warm gear. Instead of shiping my gear to Damascus, The Old Man, Cat Lady, and Mo Man drove out from Cincinnati to do a welfare check on me and brought my warm gear (I did not send all of my cold gear back, due to my last experience with the weather). It was definitely good to see family, grab some beers and get some lighter weight gear. Once you cut dead weight you realize how easy it is to actually move.

On 4/21 I hit the trail again. It was a gorgeous day. I walked with Ginger T, and a new hiker named TJ whom I met that day. Around 6:00p we walked around Beech mountain which had a beautiful exposed bald. I suggested we spend the night up there since it wasn't supposed to storm and would be an epic sunrise and sunset. Before I had my tent staked, high winds picked up and blew my tent down the mountain. I sprinted after it, and after about 70 yards I caught up with it but tripped right before I reached it and fell into my tent snapping one of the poles. Luckily TJ had a tent splint and I was able to do a field repair on the tent which should last until I can get into town and find a replacement. I was sitting in my tent, not too happy with how the last 30 minutes unfolded and opened up my food bag to start dinner. When I opened my food bag I found a beer I had stashed away. I cracked the beer and watched the sun disappear below the ridgeline, all suddenly became right with the world again.

Ten Speed and I above Watauga Lake (he is a former Swiss professional cyclist, I need to stop walking with athletes).