Hiking the Appalachian Trail on Top of the Blue Ridge Mountains

Saturday, April 2nd – the day I chose to hike the Appalachian Trail. I have to now since yesterday I mailed off a bunch of postcards (about 30) to my friends saying that I was going to AND I bought a medallion to attach to my walking stick. I am committed.

I woke up at 7 am, got ready quickly, had a hearty breakfast, but still managed to waste enough time so I didn’t get started on my hike until 11 am. I did, however, get the sleeping bag laundered.

I had to stop at the Sugarlands Visitor Center to get energy bars and chocolate for the hike. The clerk talked me into 2 chocolate bars. It wasn’t hard. I visited the facilities and then drove to Newfound Gap parking lot, which is the jumping off place for a hike to Charles Bunion on the A.T., which the Ranger had suggested as a more moderate hike.

When I got to Newfound Gap, there were no directions to Charles Bunion, no map, and the only sign pointed the way to Kephart Prong Trail and Boulevard Trail, and Maine (yes, the State of Maine). None of which were on my map. As a note: on the way back to the car, I ran into some hikers heading to Georgia who had the same problem, but there were going north instead of south, and they meant to go south.

No one I talked to knew which way went to Charles Bunion. One local person pointed to the Kephart/Boulevard Trail and said that is the only one he ever takes. So I did. There seemed to be a lot of people heading in that direction.

First a note, from Newfound Gap park-ing lot and a few places along the trail, one can clearly see Hwy 441 cut across the mountains across the valley. Hope my photo of same turned out.

I decided to take the trail slowly since I started at 11 am and didn’t have to be done til 6 pm – 7 hours for an 8-mile hike seemed doable. So, I took my trusty walking stick and my day pack with camera, wet wipes, Kleenex, water bottle, energy bars, and 1 of the two chocolate bars, plus a rain poncho for a hike.

I walked slowly up the dirt, stone, and tree root path letting others pass me. It was a beautiful, sunny day and you could see for miles. Since you have to watch where you are step on the narrow, rocky trail, I stopped periodically to lean on my walking stick and look around, or to sit down on a clean stone or recently cut tree trunk, and take in the Smokies. Side note: my nose dripped the whole time, so I used my sweatshirt as a Kleenex for most of the trip. Whenever I sat down, I would take a swig of water from the bottle in my day pack. But not too much as there are no biffies on the trail.

Observations on the walk:

• People hiking the Appalachian Trail are very happy and very friendly. They always asked how I was doing, said hello, or excused themselves for passing.
• People walking up have the right of way, which one experienced hiker explained to me when I wanted to let him pass by me when he was going down.
• People, like me, going slowly have to pull over and let the speedy ones go past.
• The mountains are eroding. You can see evidence of the trail being undermined, and even occasionally moved over closer to the peak.
• Someone (probably volunteers) have placed some logs across the path in strategic places to make the walk easier and to prevent more erosion.
• Same someones have laced some pretty big rocks in places to shore up the path and prevent a cave-in/
• The Smokies are incredibly steep mountains – much steeper than the Rockies. If someone bumped you in the wrong section of the trail, they would find you at the very bottom, unless you splatted on a big, live tree.
• The trees at the tops of the Smokies are dead or in the process of dying. There is a bug that is eating them. The Canadian Fraser Firs up there may not survive global warming, which even the Park Service doesn’t have the nerve to mention in their printed materials about the dead trees.
• These dead trees periodically fall down. Mostly the Park Service leaves them where they fall, but they chain saw any parts that fall across the path, and probably use them on the path later. These newly cut trees don’t have moss on them yet, and make good benches for senior hikers.
• The mountain tops are nice and sunny, but windy. The sides of the mountain have trees in layers above and layers below, plus the mountain peak on one side, so are shady and dark, but at the top, there is just one layer of trees so the sun pokes thru. You don’t know how much you enjoy the sun until it bursts in on you when you reach a peak.
• When you reach a peak, you think you are finished going up. Oh, no, no, no. There is always more up a little further along the trail.
• The mountain peaks are very narrow across – most about half a football field or less and fairly flat. It was like walking thru the woods in Minnesota – but with more dead trees.
• Even with all the dead trees there, new baby fir trees are trying to grow. I hope some of them make it.
• I stopped at this one beautiful, flat, meadow-like spot with 2 other people. It was a gorgeous view across the valley of ridge and ridge after ridge of beautiful blue and purple mountain ranges. You can see why they call this chain of mountains (to which the Smokies belong) the Blue Ridge – they really ARE blue.

This woman (50ish) was one of the two admiring the scenery. I took a photo of her with that backdrop and she took one of me. Trail magic. I saw her again later on the way to Icewater Spring Shelter.

• When no one comes by for a while, you really feel the peace and tranquility of the mountain. Glad at those times that I was alone – it’s hard to feel that when you’re talking.
• Did not see one single bear.
• The flowers blooming up there on the ridge tops are very tiny – but they are present and happy.
• It was thrilling to reach the Kephart Prong Trail branch-off and: (a) discover that I had just hiked 1.7 miles, (b) that Boulevard Trail was just one mile away, and (c) I was never going to make it to Chas. Bunion. But thought I could still do Clingman Dome after I was finished here.
• I sat down on a grassy hill in a sunny spot and ate my energy bar (never tasted anything so delicious), drank my waters, and took a very short video of me walking the Appalachian Trial.
• I truly did love the walk along the relatively flat ridge tops. It was magical!
• When I reached the Boulevard Trail branch-off, the sign said that the Icewater Spring Shelter was only 0.2 miles further, so I went there. I had to see it.

Side note: the people who manage the Appalachian Trial don’t want the long-distance hikers to stake their tents and start campfires just any place they feel like it, so you can’t take a tent with you on those back country hikes. Instead, they provide yurt shelters with very, very primitive toilets and fire rings. Everyone has to stay there; some people cheat and bring hammocks with them. I’m sure the Park Service doesn’t want them attached to their dying trees either. The yurts inside look like the steerage accommodations on a 19TH Century immigrant ship – two long, deep benches on which people spread out their bed roll and sleeping bag so they are sleeping side by side in two rows – one up and one down. The non-windy side of the yurt is covered with a translucent sheeting, held down by rocks. And there is a pretty fancy pulley-type contraption for keeping your food away from bears – or raccoons.

• At this yurt, I saw a chipmunk, a warbler, and an indigo bunting. More wildlife.
• This was my zenith, and then I started the trek down. On the way down, my heart was not racing and I was not flushed, but my knees did not like it, and I kept losing my balance, which can be fatal in the wrong place up here.
• I tried to take a photo at the Boulevard Trail – Icewater Spring split, but they came out fuzzy. So, a nice young woman hiking with a fraternity, took the photo for me. P.S. they made it to Chas. Bunion and then passed me again on the way down.

• I was surprised at how many people were still hiking up as I got further down. There were a lot of people coming up after 4 pm – one guy wearing expensive Italian leather loafers – and I wondered if they would be walking down in the dark. I bet he didn’t have a flashlight either.
• I met a couple with big backpacks with lots of camping gear coming up and they were just gleeful that they had received some trail magic in the parking lot. Someone had arrived with sandwiches for the long-distance hikers. They don’t have much opportunity to go shopping while on the trail, so trail magic is much appreciated.

Just before I reached the bottom, this young couple called out to me from behind. He had cut his hand badly on his pocket knife and they needed a band-aid. All I had was wet wipes. They bandaged his hand with wet wipes, and were extremely grateful. The trail ended and my feet hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurt, even my toe nails hurt, and I felt like I had just gotten off a boat, but I did it!!! I did a 6-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail (3 miles out and 3 back).

I took a 20 minute snooze in the car, then headed back my by campsite. It was a little after 5 pm. Clingman Dome will have to wait for a return trip. On the way back, I called Bryan at Bzzzz Auto Repair and he and Charlie came out and put a new headlight in and changed my oil in the trusty Subaru. Now I don’t have to worry about being pulled over on the interstate for not having a right side headlight.

I was too tired and sore to go out to eat, although I had planned to go to the Old Mill Road Restaurant which I heard from everyone was excellent. But instead I ate the chocolate candy bar and called it dinner. It was, after all, dark chocolate. I was also too tired and sore to sleep, so ended up calling both Brent and Grant around midnight.