Day 25: On the trail again

Hiked 19.6 miles, tenting at Little Laurel shelter.

Today we freed ourselves of the vortex of Hot Springs.  After an amazing breakfast of eggs and biscuits and gravy at Elmer's we headed out.  Breakfast is a big affair there and we didn't hit the trail until 10 am.  It was a nice easy journey back to where we left off on the AT, about 20 feet.  Walking down the AT and heading down the main street we watched them setting up for today's festival.  We stopped at the ATC booth and got some information on the current status of the Nora virus outbreak.  He said the biggest thing is to avoid the privies, makes sense, looks like it will be catholes for the next 100 miles.

Headed across the bridge out of town

After crossing the bridge we had our first experience getting lost on the AT.  Apparently we were supposed to jump the guardrail on the road.  At least we didn't get too far down the road before we realized.  After finding our way back and going the right direction we spent a little time traveling along the banks of the French Broad river.  The river is running high and fast right now and is kicking up a lot of dirt making it very muddy.  The whole morning we kept running into cliffs with awesome handholds.  It made me really wish for my climbing gear, it would be a great place to climb. 

After walking along the banks of the river we started climbing fast.  We followed our first real switchbacks since before Newfound Gap.  Every so often we came upon a big rock outcrop (the awesome climbing cliffs from before) and I climbed all the way out on a few to get some pictures of Hot Springs from above.

Hot Springs from above

After finally turning away from Hot Springs and heading north I ran into Stumbles and Big Job, two thru hikers from Connecticut that I met yesterday.  I spent the vast majority of the day hiking with them.  They were a blast to hike with.  I even got to see one of the stumbles that earned Stumbles such an apropos name.  A few miles in we crossed over our second interstate highway, I-25.  It was getting close to lunch time and we came around the corner and there was Bonzai's brother with a grill cooking up steak, brats, veggies and chicken.  He also had some spectacular chocolate chip muffins.  Yum!  After chowing down and catching up with Why Not and Srocket; Stumbles, Big Job and I continued up the trail.

Big Job and Stumbles

Bonzai's brother cooking up some awesome trail magic

We hit a side trail to a lookout tower on the top of Rich Mountain and I decided to check it out along with Big Job and Stumbles.  The peak and tower had been trashed a bit, it looked like someone had a party and didn't clean up, which was too bad.  The view however was great.  Along the way back down we ran into Noodles, a gentleman we last saw at Stover shelter on the first night!

View from Rich Mountain tower

View from Rich Mountain tower

Stumbles and Big Job on top of the Rich Mountain tower

View from Rich Mountain tower

After the tower Stumbles, Big Job and I cranked out some solid miles until about 16 miles in when they jumped off the AT at a road crossing to stay at a hostel.  I waited for a while for Why Not and Srocket and when they caught up they agreed with my assessment: we've had plenty of time in hostels recently, we'd rather put some more miles in and camp.  Plus we'd rather eat up some of our food so that we don't have to carry it.

Trail photo

Trail Photo

View from the trail late in the day

The next water source was at the shelter 3 miles away so off we went.  Noodles had caught up with us while we planned where we wanted to end up and he hiked to the shelter with us and is camping with us.  We set up camp a ways from the shelter.  There is only one person sleeping in the shelter, probably a combination of the festival and shelter avoidance due to the virus.

Making dinner at camp (Noodles top right)

Campsite

After a warm week it is cooling off again.  Hot Springs was supposed to get down to 37 degrees tonight so it will probably be back below freezing up here.  Camp Creek Bald has an observation tower and is only 1.4 miles up the trail so we are going to try to get up early and check out the sunrise.