Appalachian Trail

We're somewhere between Georgia and Maine, walking the ~2200 miles of the Appalachian Trail. We'll be updating sporadically, but please check out Flickr for photos along the way - we're using public computers when we can get time on them.

Springer Mountain, April 15th

Wish us luck!

Fontana Dam to Gatlinburg

Fontana Dam is a pretty serious piece of work, and the AT runs directly across the top of it.  After our stop at the Hike Inn, we got dropped off back on the trail a mile or so before the dam and headed out across it.

Across the dam we cross from the Nantahala National Forest to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which has slightly different rules and bigger mountains.

 The Smokies have been having problems with bears, and we can verify personally that they are not afraid of people and they are right, right on the trail.  We saw four bears in the first two days.  Guys in one of the shelters started calling Ana "Bear Magnet" because most people hadn't seen any.  We were much, much closer on several occasions but in those instances pictures were not a priority - getting the hell away from the bear was.  When we blog in more detail later we'll probably do an entry on bears in the Smokies, but the bottom line is that while we were closer than we may have liked, we never had a serious problem.  The black dot in the middle is probably the mama bear - the cub is in the bushes somewhere.

 Scarier than the bears, at least for the first few seconds, was our encounter with this large rattlesnake.  It was laying across the path and blended in with the roots and shadows.  Ana, who was walking in front, didn't see it until we entered the threat radius and it started rattling.  We both knew the sound immediately, though we'd never heard it before.  Luckily, the snake was cold and not very active, and we weren't too too close, so we just backed up and it decided to leave the trail.

 That's the kind of thing to make you stare at all future roots and shadows just a little bit harder.

 Shelters in the Smokies are mandatory due to bear activity these days, so they were pretty full but there was always enough room.  We ran into some pretty cool folks section hiking up there and actually had a pretty good time hanging out in the evening.  There was some serious snoring - need to get some earplugs before heading out of town for future instances.

 We've had excellent weather pretty much all through the Smokies so far, have about another 30 miles to the edge of the park.

 The Smokies actually have the highest single point on the AT, and most of the overall range is above 5000 feet. If the weather was crappy we'd have had to be really careful about lightning and cold.  Luckily, we were more worried about trying to get good pictures because we had excellent weather.  The terrain varied between pretty tough and quite easy, so not so bad overall.

Thunderhead Mountain is something of a mental milestone for 2012 (the trail changes slightly each year) as the peak is the point where you become less than 2,000 miles from the end.

1999.9 ...miles to go...from that point, we're a few days beyond that now.

 Better view of the kind of shelter we get each night if we're lucky.  The pre-setup cables for hanging food bags save so much work and trouble, I love them dearly.

 Large turkey serenaded the camp one morning.

 We've seen deer several times - they're obviously not hunted because they are completely unafraid.

 Wild boar are apparently all over the Smokies, frequently see areas where they have rooted.  Supposed to be extremely aggressive, thankfully nocturnal and generally hikers never see them.

 More good weather.

 Getting close to Clingman's Dome, the highest point on the AT, the forest changed from deciduous to coniferous.  We felt sort of like we had changed levels in a game or something.

 Tower on top of Clingman's built in the late 50's, hence the space-race architecture.  

 The trail actually straddles the state line for most of this part.  We bummed a ride into town for re-supply from the top of Clingman's, since that's one of two places a road crosses the Trail in the park.

 Gatlinburg is apparently a major tourist area, kind of board-walky and full of wild museums and stuff.  We hit the Grand Prix, the hiker motel (only $30 a night...impressive) and got some supplies and dinner.

 Didn't say no to free moonshine tastings here, can't say I'll be switching from scotch to moonshine anytime soon though.

 Ana had been feeling kind of in-general crappy and our mileage had been not-so-great for a few days as a result, so in town she went and got a blood test to check for low iron or other performance-reducing dietary deficiencies (we normally eat a lot better than we do on the trail, seemed plausible) and they found her blood iron at about 10% of the minimum acceptable value for blood donation. Vitamins, supplements, beef / beef jerky, and "better switch out the Pop Tarts for Clif Bars" were the recommended fix, so we headed to a serious steakhouse to get us both some iron.  She ordered and nearly finished a darn good 28oz porterhouse, so hopefully between that and the supplements we'll be killing it, rather than being killed by it, out on the trail tomorrow.

 She gnawed the bones for breakfast in a manner most befitting an individual who now pretty much lives outdoors.

You see some things in places in the south that you just don't see very often in the northeast - this is above the computer terminal at the hotel.  I was not the only hiker to take a picture.  The sign for the hotel has "Get right or get left" on it, which I presume refers to the Rapture.  I made friends with the owner and staff by fixing the guest computer, saving them the trouble of calling some expensive technician, but I have been careful not to comment on the extreme/comical levels of religious material distributed around the hotel, because I think things would get hostile pretty fast. DVDs about what to do if you're left behind, scriptures, lots of other things on the walls and tables.

As a final note, please don't expect blog entries this big very often - I got to use the heck out of the guest computer because I fixed it and no other guests wanted it, but it is pretty hard to get enough internet access and non-trail time (gotta make the miles, and then dining takes priority after that) to blog like this.  We will update the Google Map with the towns when we get to them, and sometimes that may be it.  

Also check the AT Flickr set, we're tossing pictures up there when we can.  To make things simpler, each time we upload some pictures I'll iterate the number in the file names, so the first upload (from Franklin) the files will all have names starting with 'AT', and the second time, here in Gatlinburg the names will have 'AT2', etc, mostly so I can keep track of what is uploaded, but it can also be used to see if we've added pictures since the last time.

Franklin to Fontana Dam

I have a little extra time in town today, so I'll put up a slightly more detailed entry this time, covering leaving Franklin through reaching Fontana Dam, which was only a 4-day section for us.

We left Franklin on a morning shuttle provided by the motel, and put in decent mileage, coming in to a camp area pretty late with a thunderstorm coming in.  We were very surprised to find that there was still room in the shelter and got under cover just before the sky really let loose.

By this point we knew probably half of the hikers staying in the shelter so it is a little less strange to be in such close quarters with them overnight.

 Relatively clean, dry, flat surfaces are a rarity and a pleasure.

 The next day we pushed hard across some terrain that was pretty rough, because we knew the Nantahala Outdoor Center was about 16 miles away and we wanted badly to make it before 7PM so we could eat at their restaurant.  It rained several separate times that day but never with more than moderate intensity so we didn't get that wet under the gear.

 Very happy to arrive, numerous valuable facilities right on the trail otherwise in the middle of nowhere.

 Arrived at 6:20 but tons of people came in after us - didn't have to rush or feel guilty.

 Hot dinner one doesn't have to carry, prepare, or clean up after - yes please. I think it would have tasted quite good if we weren't famished but it tasted really really good after 16 rainy miles.

 The office for the bunkhouses was closed but a hiker let us have two extra bunks in his room for free.

Ana had had some pain in her back and hip that was getting us pretty worried, but the next morning at the outfitter's some really experienced staff members refitted her backpack, which was apparently compressing her sciatic nerve.  They said she could either wait 2-3 days to find out if that was the problem, or walk for 2-3 hours and see if it hurt more or less, so she said walk and we did 14 miles up and out of the valley.  No further pain, so thanks guys at the NOC outfitters!

 Weather got nice after the NOC too.

 Ran into a section hiker named "180" and family at Stecoah gap late that day, providing free snacks and other goodies, we ate a bunch and thanked them kindly.  Sounds like they hike during the day and do "trail magic", as such unexpected kindness is called, in the evenings.  Camped half a mile further up the trail, nice dry night with reasonable temperatures.

 Getting close to the Smokies at this point, had some nice views because it wasn't raining.

Terrain coming out of the NOC was pretty rough and doing back to back 14-mile days over it took it out of us.  Luckily, the fine folks at the Hike Inn in Fontana do an evening shuttle for through hikers to the nearest civilization and we got Mexican food that was actually some of the best I've had at a place called Pacifico.

Still walking, will be on the NC/TN border for the next while. Hopefully we'll find some good BBQ along the way! 

100 Miles and First State Line

We made it past Georgia and into North Carolina, our first state line crossing:

We also have not yet been eaten by bears, though we've seen quite a few warnings and made sure to hang our food well:

Mile 100 (we're currently at ~106) is near the top of a fairly steep climb, Albert Mountain in North Carolina, but it offers a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains (that we are becoming very close friends with):

We spent a day in Franklin, NC to recuperate and regroup a bit, but will be burning up the miles (we hope) and posting again in a few days, just before we hit the Smokies. Should be gorgeous!

Weather

So far, we've hiked mostly in glorious cool and sunny conditions, perfect for getting in the miles:

We've also hiked through a fair bit of rain and fog, and one night just made it to a campsite as a thunderstorm began (didn't stop to take pictures):

Surprisingly, we also had some snow, which we knew was a possibility this month but were hoping we wouldn't hit any:

It made for a very cold night, especially as we were way up on a mountain in our little 3-season tent, luckily with enough gear to not be (too) worried about our safety. One of the other hikers who was in the shelter rather than tenting said his thermometer read 20 degrees Fahrenheit! We piled on all our clothing and headed down the mountain, happy we were headed for a town since the next night was supposed to be even colder.

What Now?

So. The blog. We started this blog to keep everyone informed while we were in Japan and to act as a journal of sorts for our adventures abroad. Now that we're no longer living abroad, we'll still blog interesting things we get up to, like house remodeling, adventuring, places we visit for conferences, and major life things (kittens!), but if you're not family or friends, you may not want to follow us around anymore. Posts will be infrequent, since as grad students we don't anticipate doing blog-worthy things too often. At least, we assume no one else will be as fascinated by the research methods, papers, and statistics we'll be dealing with.

Grad school starts in August. It's April. We've got time for one more adventure! For the next four months, we'll be attempting to hike the Appalachian Trail. Hopefully we'll make it from Springer (in Georgia) to Katahdin (in Maine) and we'll be checking in when we can along the way. That won't be often, but we'll have a Google Map of our progress as well as posts whenever we can stop in a town to upload our pictures and write about where we've been. Thanks for reading!

We'll put a round of pre-actual-trail pictures in this post too.

Pretty much everything plus at least six days worth of food, spread out on the floor.

The bags weighed in at 32 and 35 pounds (Ana / Lee), including food and a liter of water each.  To completely fill the water tanks would add an additional six pounds to each bag, but we won't have to do that unless we're passing through areas with fewer water sources than normal.  The volume and weight of initial food is considerable (~15lbs), but will thankfully decline as we eat it, making it less of a chore to get everything in the bags and to carry them. 

The official "start" pictures in full gear, etc, will be in the next post, which might be some time coming, since we can only get to the internet when we find a hotel with a PC available to use. We started on the 15th, and the weather is looking fantastic. Wish us luck!