Day 29: Erwin

Hiked 17.6 miles, staying in Curly Maple Gap shelter.

We got up before the sunrise as usual today and got on the trail just before it peeked over the horizon.  Just a quarter mile up from our campsite was a place called High Rocks, which was just a large pile of rocks at the peak of the mountain.  It allowed us to get above most of the trees and get some pretty sweet early morning photos.

Morning view of the mountains

Sunrise photo

We are definitely starting to leave the big mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina behind.  We only have one more 6000 footer ahead of us which we will be over tomorrow or the day after.  After that we won't see another until Mt. Washington.  We still have some tough climbs but in between them we have been walking a bunch of flatter terrain. This is not to say that it is flat, just not as steep up and down as we have been doing.

Andrew

Dip'n'sip and Why Not

Trail Photo

We spent the morning descending to Erwin, Tennessee.  Spring is definitely here.  As yesterday's pictures show, flowers are out everywhere.  The Wood Sorrel makes the woods look like they are covered in snow.  I saw a bunch of buds on the Rhododendrons today.  It will be quite something when they actually bloom.  There are still forests of them everywhere here.

First view of Erwin

Mountains around Erwin

French Broad River

We didn't actually go all the way into Erwin.  It is a two mile hitch into town and we just resupplied in Landrum.  We did have mail drops to pick up here and I needed some more alcohol (for cooking) and Dip'n'sip needed to resupply.  We were able to take care of all of that at Uncle Johnny's which is a hostel about 20 feet from the trail.

Uncle Johnny's

Chaos decided to take a zero in Erwin so Dip'n'sip has decided to rejoin the cool club, and by that I mean he is hiking with us again, at least until Damascus.
The climb back out of Erwin wasn't too bad.  It was a quick 5 miles to the shelter.  We got there and decided to stay.  About 30 seconds after everyone arrived and put their stuff in the shelter the sky opened up.  Good timing again!

Crossing the French Broad

We put in decent miles today but were still in camp by 4.  This gave us four hours of daylight to eat, relax, eat, relax and eat again before going to bed.  I am reading Just Passing Through which is a book by Winton Porter, the guy who owns the store at Neels Gap.  It is about all the crazy stuff he sees and he is a good writer. I would highly recommend it.  In case you don't read it though here is a fun fact.  When they do the pack shakedowns there to help hikers shed useless gear, they send home about 9000 lbs of gear annually!

Two guys had quite the adventure trying to bear bag in the rain