Day 30: Walking in a circle

Hiked 22.0 miles, staying in Clyde Smith shelter.

Today we decided to not set alarms and just get up when we felt like it.  The problem with shelters though is that everyone gets up at different times, so starting around 5:30 onwards there is pretty much continuous noise of people packing up, cooking, moving around, etc...  That is the price you pay for staying in the shelters, just like you are guaranteed to have someone snoring loudly.  The thing that was new last night was a hiker named Orion.  He smoked about a pack before going to bed and had to get up at midnight and 4 am just to smoke.  Now that is an addiction!

The only big mountain today was Unaka.  We are starting to get far enough north that at 5000 feet we are now seeing spruce forests at the top instead of the oak and rhododendrons we were seeing in Georgia.  It is only the very top that is like this and it is a really interesting transition.  Coolest new flower we saw today was called a Dutchman's Pantaloon, and the flower looks just like an upside down pair of pants!

Early morning light filtering through the trees

Spruce forest on the top of Unaka

We also had a nice balance between walking through the woods and mountain meadows today.  For the most part up till now we have only been seeing big open spaces on the top of balds but now we are getting them further down once in a while.

View from one of the grassy balds

Hiking over a grassy bald

We have spent the last day or two doing almost a complete circle around Roan Mountain.  We have been about the same distance away since before our descent into Erwin, to the point that we are actually walking south tomorrow when we summit it!  Because it is much taller than everything around it we have been able to see it for a long time.  It will be great to finally conquer it tomorrow and start heading north again.

Amazing how the trees just shatter when they come down

View of the valley

Dip'n'sip hiking behind me

View of Roan Mountain, we go there next!

 Even though today was our second longest day of the whole hike we finished it quickly.  The day we did 24 miles we got into camp around 9 I think, today we were at the shelter by 5.  We are definitely getting our hiker legs under us!

Hanging out on "Rock Pillar"

Staying with is tonight is Dragonfly and Rosy Eagle (who were also with us last night), and Barbarossa.  Also tenting here are Cookie and Wolfgang, two germans that we haven't seen since Standing Bear.  The shelter is set up kind of funky and it is weird logistically to fit the seven people in but we managed.

Our home for the night