Day nineteen

Friday March 17, 2017

After three zero days in Franklin, I’m finally standing at the bottom of Winding Stair Gap, ready to begin my ten mile climb to the 5342 ft. summit of Wayah Mountain. The day begins cold and damp with intermittent showers. The sky a sheet of slate gray above the bare limbs. The forest floor a thousand shades of damp brown.

I’m well rested and we’ll fed and I make the 4.4 mile climb to Siler Gap in an hour and a half. I’m feeling good and say to myself, “at this rate I should make the Wayah shelter by two o’clock.

AND THEN I climb back up into the snow. The climb up and over Siler Bald was nothing short of treacherous. Not only was the trail snow covered, it was hard packed, and overnight it had frozen into a solid sheet of ice. I was slipping and sliding, and on the verge of going down constantly. Add to this the fact that this sheet of ice was approximately two feet wide and to my right was a sheer drop of maybe 500 ft.

But I did make it over the Bald, very slowly and carefully. The back side of the Bald was still snow covered but the snow was soft and slushy. The trail finally gave way to patches of bare earth. But this bare earth was MUD, soupy, slimy, and slippery. The mud was almost worse than the snow. The mud so deep that it made sucking and squishing sounds with each step. If I went down in the snow I would stay relatively clean but in this mud I hated to think.

I was still a long way from the summit of Wayah Mountain and the going was extremely slow. I slogged on through the snow and the mud and eventually did make the summit. The view was spectacular and the feeling of accomplishment almost as good. The wind on the summit was howling and bitter cold so I didn’t tarry long.

Now only another mile to the shelter and thankfully that mile was downhill. I reached the shelter at 5:00 not 2:00. But that didn’t matter now. Now all that mattered was finding a place to pitch my tent, climb into my sleeping bag and finally get warm. But it seemed that all the camping sites were muddy and on a hill. I picked the best that I cold find, pitched my tent, had a bite to eat and climbed into my sleeping bag.  Glad to have this day and another mountain behind me.

120.5 miles down      2069.3 miles to go

Day twenty

Saturday March 18, 2017

The rain returned sometime during the night.  Not torrential like some nights but a constant pitter patter on my tent. The morning dawned gray and soggy with a cold fog and wind. I packed up my wet muddy tent and was on the trail just before 10:00 A.M. My destination for today is Wesser Bald shelter some ten miles away. And in my path was yet another mountain, the 5080 ft. Copper Ridge Bald. I struggled through the morning and was again doubting my resolve. By the time I made it to Cold Spring shelter, almost to the summit of Copper Ridge, I had about decided that I would pack it in when I reached NOC (Nantahala Outdoor Center) day after tomorrow. But I stopped at the shelter, took off my pack, and had a nice long break. I had a little cheese and bread, and candy bar, and a cookie.  This break and the food (fuel) gave me the strength to push on. But the rest of the afternoon I was nursing a pain in my left groin area. Some pull that I suffered back on the ice when I had almost gone down but had managed to keep my feet under me.

I managed, with great difficulty, to make it to Wesser Bald shelter about 5:00 P.M. I pitched my tent, again on a plot of bare dirt. Trudged back up the hill to fill my water bottles for tomorrow. Then climbed into my sleeping bag, just about the time that the temperature really started to drop. It is going to be another bitter night. It’s a good thing I have my down booties.
131.1 miles down      2058..7 miles to go

Day twenty one

Sunday March 19, 2017

The day began sunny and still but colder than hell. The temperature somewhere in the lower twenties. It was warm and cozy in my sleeping bag, which made it difficult to start my day. But NOC lay at the end of this day if I would just get up and get moving.

Yesterday I had stopped at Wesser Bald to take a photo of the spectacular view. While I had my phone in my had, I thought to myself “I wonder if I have a signal?” I checked and sure enough I did. I called NOC and inquired about a private room for tonight. No bunk rooms for me if I can avoid it. Sure enough the had one room left. I asked if they needed my credit card information in order to secure the room. As expected the answer was yes. I explained that I was on a mountain top a days hike away and my credit card was buried in my backpack. Their response “no credit card no room”. I said hold on a second, and laid my phone on a rock, hoping that I wouldn’t loose the signal, and frantically dug into my backpack. With card in had, I picked up my phone and asked if she was still there. Wonders of wonders she was and I secured the room.

Back to today: So I knew if I would just get up and get moving, there was a nice warm cabin waiting for me at the bottom of the mountain. The first thing that I noticed when I got out of my tent was the bitter cold. The second thing was that my water bottles were frozen. By the time I had my tent packed up my hands were a muddy frozen mess. There was no way that I could put them into my gloves. So I took one of my water bottles, and shook it to break up the ice, and poured it over my hands, several times, until my hands were clean, then put on my gloves. I threw on my backpack and set off down the mountain. 

It was maybe forty five minutes before I could feel my fingers and an hour before my hands were comfortable. It was a beautiful day and I was headed downhill for a change.

The first part of the descent was really difficult. To the point where a had to forego my trekking poles and scramble on all fours. But as I went lower it got easier. And the trail was dry today. Also as the day progressed it got warmed. Throughout the day I shed layer after layer, until by the end of the day I was hiking in just a thin long-sleeved shit. This was the first day in many that was actually fun to be on the trail. The snow was beautiful but that was hiking for survival. Today it was a joy to be in the woods. The sun through the rhododendron causing dappled shadows at my feet. The first indication that I was nearing my destination was the sound of the Nantahala River.

I’m now in my cabin at NOC. I’ve eaten hot food, twice, today. I’ve had a shower and washed my clothes.

Tomorrow is another day of climbing but tomorrow is another day. And it is forecast to be more beautiful than today.
137.0 miles down      2052.8 miles to go