North Carolina

As we crossed the official border between Georgia and North Carolina, Nate commented, "NC doesn't seem that much different." Little did he know what was lying in store for us just a few hundred meters beyond Bly Gap. I can sum up the difference between GA & NC in one word. Snow. Not the flurry fake stuff that melts within a few hours, but real, knee-deep snow that lingers for days, even in the sunshine-filled parts of the mountains. Now we didn't feel like total fools carrying around snowshoes.

Plum Orchard Gap shelter was our last Georgia shelter. Nate had quite the experience here, but he'll have to tell you about that himself. Our ride into Hiawassee was right, GA maintains its shelters better than NC, or at least Georgia's shelters have the feeling of security because the majority are above 1 story high.

Day 7: Plum Orchard Gap shelter-Standing Indian shelter, 12.2 miles. Met snow-and lots of it-steep climbs, and bigfoot today. Once past Bly Gap it was straight up. Nate and I used to joke and point to the tallest mountain within sight and say, "You think we're climbing that next?" Inevitably that was the case, so it became less of a joke and more of a reality, "Well, I guess that's our next point."  Bigfoot was the first SOBO (south bounder) we met. We chatted with him for a few minutes about our snowshoes (this has been the #1 conversation topic thus far) and their usefulness in the Smokies (yay!). We followed his tracks all the way to Standing Indian shelter, where we bedded down for the night. No bear cables. No second floors. Nothing between us and the wild. Great. We named him bigfoot because he had to have at least at size 15 shoe. I could fit almost two of my shoes in his footprint.

Day 8: Standing Indian shelter-Silers Bald Shelter, 16 miles. Blueblazed 12 miles off of our total mileage. Blue blazing is when you take a side trail that is not part of the AT. In most cases this results in cutting mileage. This would provide us with an extra day, but proved to be a more difficult experience than we had imagined. The day began with a 2 mile climb to the summit of Standing Indian Mountain. From there, we picked up the blue-blazed trail down to the SI camping ground. The problem was that no one had gone on this trail since the snowfall, so it took cunning land navigation, expert eyesight, and a little bit of luck to make our way from blaze to blaze. It must've taken us 20 minutes to find the fourth blue blazed tree, but after that the trail was easily identifiable, although still slippery with the steep descent and heavy snow. 6 miles of detour later, we were back on the white-blazed Appalachian Trail. Our shelter seemed rarely used as it was on a 1 mile off-trail loop and the bear cables were so rusty, I was surprised we not only managed to get our food up there, but also back down in the morning.

 Day 9: Silers Bald shelter-Wesser Bald shelter,18 miles. 9 hours 40 minutes. Very long day. We were motivated by the fact that the next day would be a low mileage day topped offwith a hot shower, food, and warm place to sleep. On the approach to Wayah Bald, we utilized our snowshoes for the first time (and our packs felt as light as air!). Nate, who had been lagging behind a bit, took off like a rocket and I didn't see him again until we reached the summit. A beautiful view aided by an observation tower. It was neat sighting the mountains we had just come from (Standing Indian) and the ones we would reach in the near future (Clingman's Dome). With two climbs standing between us and our shelter, we reached Burningtown Gap. Nate and I noticed a huge tent that looked like a military tent. As we drew closer, we were greeted by a man named Apple, and a sign that read, "Trail Angel, free hot dogs." We were welcomed into the heated tent and given hotdogs, chips, and cookies, as we discussed our journey thus far, trail conditions, and our future plans. This was Nate's first experience with a trail angel, and later that night at the firetower, Nate told me, "If he wasn't there, I wouldn't be here." It's funny because after our experience I remembered Nate Jones talking about the same man who had been there last year. With our last climb to go, we opted to take the road as the sun was quickly setting (I assumed it would be a more direct approach). Just before sunset we hit the summit of Wesser Bald with an old firetower. It was a beautiful view and a great way to end the day.

Day 10: Wesser Bald Shelter-NOC, 5.7 miles. After a restless freezing night, I awoke Nate a little earlier than usual (shh, he doesn't know that). We were on the trail by 8am, enthusiastic to have less than 6 miles between us an the NOC, where my old high school friend, Anne, would pick us up to take us to her home in Andrews, NC near Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, the youthcamp we used to attend when we lived in Savannah. It felt strange, but good being back after nearly 6 years. We have since showered, laundered, and refueled, ready to take on the Smokies. We will have a short hike tomorrow, and reach Fontana Dam on Monday, February 14th.

Blessings,
Petra