Day 21: FAA tower tour

Hiked 20.0 miles, tenting at an unnamed gap.

They say it takes 3 weeks to develop a habit.  Well last night I forgot to set an alarm and still woke up only ten minutes late.  Guess I'm in the habit...

We started the day with a quick hard climb up Snowbird mountain.  Snowbird is a bald and unlike the other balds we have been on the trail here was very well marked with little posts.  On top of Snowbird is an FAA tower and a spectacular view.  A few minutes after we got to the  top, while we were admiring the view, the guy who works there showed up and invited us inside.  It was all 60s technology but it was still cool to see.  The facility is just a beacon that broadcasts information to aircraft.  A lot of airplanes pass overhead so there.were a lot of neat intersecting contrails.  He also talked a little about shutdowns that happened due to yesterday's Boston bombing.

Climbing up Snowbird

The trail on Snowbird

Panorama from Snowbird

Snowbird FAA Tower

X marks the spot!

After leaving Snowbird we had a long 7 mile hike to the next bald, Max Patch.  To get to Max Patch we had to climb over a tough unnamed peak in between.  The climb up Max Patch was equally tough.  Luckily for us about a mile before the top we came upon some awesome trail magic.  A guy with the trail name Onnisimus had driven his RV up the gravel road and was cooking up burgers and dogs and had soda.  He had thru hiked in 2003 and 2005 and is spending this summer driving up the trail and doing trail magic all over.  A burger, dog and soda later I was refueled for the last bit of the climb.

Max Patch is one of the biggest bald we've seen.  We were out of the trees for a long time.  The top has an awesome view and we hung out there in the sun for a while and ate lunch.  I know we had just had burgers, but thru hikers can take down a lot of food.  There was a group of older day hikers up top and we answered questions and chatted with them for a while.  They were apparently from Hendersonville (where my grandparents were from), I asked if they knew them but apparently not.

Max Patch

View from Max Patch

Thru hikers relaxing on top of Max Patch

Srocket takes in the view

Heading down the trail from the top of Max Patch

 We hiked from there to the shelter we had planned to stay at and found a note saying that there had been a lot of Nora virus cases there.  We decided to move on.  There is a campsite a little farther on at an unnamed gap and that's where we ended up.  So did a lot of other people. It is tent city here and everyone is aiming for Hot Springs tomorrow.  We are going to try to get up early so we can reserve a spot at a hostel as soon as we have service.  After doing almost 60 miles in three days it will be nice to get into town and get some down time.

Tent city at Unnamed Gap