Maine to Georgia - Complete

May 3, 2009

Done! We hiked the final link in my complete section hike, ending at Devil Fork Gap on the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina.

It was a rainy day, but we felt lucky to hike for the first couple of hours in only fog. Then, when we were well committed to the route, light rain set in, perfect for umbrellas. The last section was 8.5 miles, including the usual southern Appalachian ups and downs, and ending in a cow pasture, one of my favorite features of the Trail.

If you've been following the adventure, you may remember that I climbed both Springer and Katahdin in the fog, so am quite used to not seeing the long view. Again today, we focused on the near at hand, old orchards with apple trees in bloom, trilliums everywhere, a small waterfall near the end of the day.

It's been a wonderful 12 years, and thank you to all the loyal supporters who have read and commented along the way.
Thanks to those who have driven (Augusta especially), dried me out during hurricanes (Michael and Susan) and those who have accompanied:

Phoebe for parts of the Shenandoah, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, this final section, and for believing.
Ginny and Martha for three very long sections in New Hampshire and Vermont.
Abby for Glastonbury Mountain, Vermont.
Louisa and Li Zhuang for some of the bogs of Maine.
Mabel for some Pennsylvania miles.

Oscar and Chloe for canine companionship.

Bald and Not So

May 2, 2009

For several days, my most faithful AT supporters and companions have been sharing the experience. Phoebe joined me in Johnson City, and with a second car we've been able to car-spot and make double progress!
At the top of Beauty Spot Bald (above) Phoebe and I enjoyed views of the Unaka and Bald Mountain ranges on a gorgeous day. Several through hikers were lingering up there, so we asked one to be our photographer.

Some mountaintops are not so picturesque - here's Unaka, flat on top, a forest of red spruce (reminding us of New England) but not much to indicate the actual top.
In case we'd been overcome by amnesia, here's a marker to let us know we're on the AT. Miraculously, a through-hiker came by just in time to snap a photo.

Today, we hiked in fog and rain from Big Bald (where we could see that it was a bald but not much more) to Sam's Gap, where I-26 has cut a drastic gash through the landscape. Here we are crossing an old farmstead meadow near Street Gap.

We've rented a house at the Wolf Laurel resort development, so we are living in luxury for these last few days of the hike. Stay tuned for the finale!

Bald Mountain Trek

April 21, 2009

I'm working on a 20-mile stretch of the Bald Mountains where the Trail, and the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina, make a big northward bend. Camp Creek Bald has a bunch of telecom towers on top, and a road for trucks to service them, so I used it to get up into the middle of the section.  

Above is Blackstack Cliff, a forbidding-looking pile which made me feel a little nervous about venturing into the wilderness!

But it turned out as usual, there were plenty of through hikers. Much of the trail was well-constructed; here's a flight of stone steps, thanks to the trail crews! 

Up here at 4200 feet, trout lilies were having their fling along trailside.

And on Cold Spring Mountain, one of the nice southern Appalachian meadows. Several old roads come up here, and the gaps are named for the farmsteads that were here: Fox Cabin and Jerry Cabin.

Here's the view back south to Camp Creek Bald where I started this morning.

Trail Town - Hot Springs

April 17, 2009

Hot Springs is a famous AT landmark - the Trail is the sidewalk here along Bridge Street. Trains cross the street several times a day, passing right next to the campground where I'm staying - midnight and 5 am every night. I know because of the train whistle! It brings back memories of the "old days" by which I mean growing up in the 50s when trains were everywhere.After crossing the French Broad River, the Trail leaves the sidewalk again and climbs up Lovers Leap Ridge. Here's a view back to town. This hike is another excellent bike-hike, 8 miles down down down to the river and then the walk back up to Rich Mountain Fire Tower.

Approaching Hot Springs

April 16, 2009

Coming into Hot Springs I was able to do a great bike-hike. Here's an overlook along NC Route 209 looking back south toward the Max Patch area. The road hugs the cliff top, then plunges down to the French Broad River.

Here's the hike back up to where I started - there's one of the many hikers I met along the way.
In Hot Springs, I'm camping where a CCC camp was located, and here's part of the treadway that they built in the 1930s.

Dicentra canadensis

April 13, 2009

While strolling along on Sunday, I spotted a patch of spring flowers, and snapped a photo.

On close examination, it's squirrel corn, a relative of dutchman's breeches and bleeding heart - so nice!

Sun and Rain

April 13, 2009

Sunday (Easter for some) was a perfect sunny day, so I "skipped ahead" a few miles to famous Max Patch, one of the classic Appalachian balds. A snow drift still clung just below the crest where the wind must have compacted it all winter. Two days later I went by the trail head and the snow was gone. Quite a few picnickers were up there with dogs and frisbies although it's quite a remote place, about a 10 mile drive up a dirt forest road.

Most days have been cloudy or foggy - today I hiked Walnut Mountain and Bluff Mountain. Here's Walnut Mountain Shelter, built in 1938, I'm guessing out of chestnut logs.


Here's the top of Bluff Mountain, at 4600 feet, in the clouds. I was glad to be on a day hike, returning to the lowlands for the night - I met numerous hardy through-hikers who were camping in the fog and drizzle.

Smoky Mountain Springtime

April 11, 2009

I'm at it again. After a drive from New England on which I encountered snow flurries on the Hudson and daffodils through Virginia, I'm headquartered in Newport, TN. 

I'll be hiking the Tennessee-North Carolina state line northward.

On my first day, I finished the last stretch of the Smokies and crossed the Pigeon River. Here's the Trail along State Line Branch, plunging down to the Pigeon River (and I-40).

 Now I'm starting up the Bald Mountains - the first hike to the top of Snowbird Mountain was socked in with low-hanging cloud cover. 

These funky trilliums (if I remember right, they're called "toad shade") are blooming in damp places.

Further up the slope, trailing arbutus are blooming along the trailside. 

You can see how foggy it is here.

Eeyore Has Company in the Woods

June 17, 2008

I was hiking along as usual, getting a little bored with the green woods, no views, no special microclimates to get excited about. Then along came a speedy hiker - we chatted as she passed, and her trail name was - Tigger! She was through-hiking southbound (SOBO in the lingo) with three other women, and they had picked Pooh names, too (but none of them was Eeyore!).

Here are two of them taking a break at the Cable Cap Shelter; it's located on the slopes down to Fontana Dam where the Trail crosses the Little Tennessee River at Fontana Lake.

The guy with the dog is from Chicago, just out to try some backpacking with his dog. He's a bookstore manager from Chicago, who wants to move to North Carolina.

Built on Top

May 27, 2008

Another variation on the balds - Wayah Bald is another heath bald, with the added feature of a stone tower. The CCC built it during the Depression, twice as tall as it is now - the top story began to crack so it was removed and a new roof put on in the 1940s. From here the Smokies are sometimes visible, 30 miles away. I used the access road for a great 4-mile downhill bike ride and then hiked back up. When I got to the top it was raining and a rainbow hung over the valley to the east.











Albert Mountain has a fire lookout tower, no longer used but preserved. Its view looks over the headwaters of the Little Tennessee River, just starting the trip north to the Mississippi. You can see a white AT blaze painted on the rock up ahead. I stopped for lunch on these rocks but pretty soon I was scared off by a loud thunder clap from the other side of the ridge.

Lunch on a Grass Bald

May 26, 2008

Siler Bald in North Carolina - a terrific meadow at the top where there's a view in all directions. I had lunch up here, admiring the mountain tops to the south that I'd been climbing over the last few days and Wayah Bald, the next mountain northward. I chatted with three guys through-hiking who had been studying landscape architecture and were about to start their work lives.


Then I went by the shelter, it's called "Nantahala Design" - this refers to the roofed porch with a bench and table built in.

Heath Bald - Laurel Slick

May 25, 2008

The top of Standing Indian Mountain is covered by rhododendrons, azaleas, and mountain laurels, taller than a person - it's called a heath bald or a laurel slick.

Here at the top a little view patch has been cut, looking south into Georgia, where I'll be headed soon. It was Memorial Day weekend, and there was quite a crowd up here, maybe a couple of dozen people - what a surprise after walking alone in the woods for a few hours to get here!

A Perfect Day on Roan

May 13, 2008

This day dawned blue-sky as per the weather report - I planned a long day in the warm sun on the grassy balds of Roan Mountain.

It started with a trek Trail-north from Carvers Gap across the Roan and Jane Balds shown here, then a descent to Yellow Mountain Gap where I "tagged up" with my previous endpoint and ate lunch in a meadow with a hummingbird and a crowd of chestnut-sided warblers.

After returning to the starting point, I hiked an extra 2 miles in the opposite direction over forested Roan High Knob (the distant dark one in the photo) to where I had planted my bicycle to ride downhill to the car at day's end.

The famed rhododendron gardens are not in bloom yet - at this 6000 foot altitude, that won't happen until late June. But as the picture shows, the alders are doing their thing. Alders are here as a relict population - a New England plant that spread south during the Ice Age and has remained in the high altitude spots like this.

Can you see the survey benchmark for the AT, hiding under the alder?