3/12-3/17: Hiawassee, GA -> Franklin,NC

Greetings from North Carolina! We’ve crossed into a new state, and reached the 100 mile mark, both big milestones! This has been by far my favorite leg of the journey so far, and Sophie’s too.

When I last wrote, we were finishing up a lovely stay at Around the Bend hostel. Our first day back out on the trail, we were able to slackpack thanks to the wonderful folks there. “Slackpacking” is hiking with a daypack and only the essentials for a section while someone, in this case the hostel, keeps the rest of your heavy gear, like your sleep system and cook kit. With much less weight, we were able to go faster and farther than ever before.

We started our day at Indian Grave Gap, where we received a special treat of donuts as trail magic from a shuttle driver we recognized from Unicoi Gap previously. From there, our day had two major climbs, of Tray Mountain and Kelly’s Knob. After a cold weekend, the trees were icy, and we summitted Tray Mt. amidst branches covered in frost under a perfect blue sky. It was beautiful! It felt like our first “magical nature moment,” as Sophie put it. The ascent of Kelly’s Knob got very chilly, and we didn’t linger long at the summit (which wasn’t too impressive anyway).

From there, we descended into Dick’s Creek Gap, which was right around the bend (ha) from the hostel. Along the way, I was very excited, perhaps too excited, to find a tree that looked like a foot, which I recognized from previous thru-hiker Gretchen’s blog. We were also on the lookout for a “thinking bench” next to a stream that someone had told us about, and were elated to find it right before reaching the gap.

We had heard that Around the Bend was doing trail magic there, so we were disappointed not to find any. I guess our timing was off. Instead we walked half a mile more down the road back to the hostel to retrieve our packs – and found the trail magic waiting for us. It was awesome to get burgers from Learning Curve, a super cool volunteer at the hostel, at the end of a big day.

With our packs back in tow, we caught a ride back to Dick’s Creek Gap and hiked about half a mile more to a campsite for the night. It was a lot harder to hike with our full packs! In all, we hiked over 15 miles, including the side miles back to the hostel, to make it our longest day yet by distance. Slackpacking felt amazing for the shoulders, but it was still harder on our knees that we had hoped, potentially a sign that we were going too fast (more on that later).

The next day, we were excited to cross over our first state line into North Carolina, although I also felt a sense of loss to be leaving Georgia, which was very good to me. It was super cold all day. I started our hike for the day in my baselayers under my hiking outfit. Partially because of the cold making it harder to talk, Sophie and I put our headphones in while hiking for the first time and I listened to my audiobook for a while. It made for a different, fun hiking experience. Soon, we reached the GA/NC border! Not long after, we saw a gnarled tree that several people had mentioned to us.

North Carolina came in like a lion with strong, cold winds and steep ascents. It was like as soon as we crossed the border, the average elevation jumped up by 1000 feet. There was so much uphill! It was probably our hardest day on trail yet, even though it wasn’t nearly our longest. Despite all this, it was a strong contender for my favorite day on trail.

Or at least it was, until we neared our destination and Sophie started to experience serious knee pain. She was walking with a noticeable limp and taking it extremely slow on the descents, making for a scary scene. I’ve been very worried about one of us getting injured and this didn’t look good. At the shelter, Sophie was able to reach the medically inclined in her family, who diagnosed it as quad tendonitis. Luckily this isn’t too serious, and she was already feeling a bit better in the morning. Her knee needed rest that the trail couldn’t provide, though, so she decided when we made it to Franklin in the coming days, she would take a few days off to recoup from the injury and rejoin me afterwards. I was sad to hear it and I knew I would miss her, but I knew she was making the right choice. Sophie blames our day slackpacking, as we perhaps weren’t as careful as we ought to have been.

That morning began with frustration after a freezing night, as I struggled to pack up all my stuff in the cold. It soon turned into a great day, however. Sophie and I took it nice and slow and easy to rest her knee; it ended up being our longest day timewise, but a relatively easy one.

We reached our highest elevation so far after a gentle climb of Standing Indian Mountain. The environment near the summit was fascinating; Sophie said it reminded her of the elephant graveyard from the Lion King. We took a brief side trail to the true summit, and we were so glad we did, as we were greeted with the best views we had seen so far! It was spectacular. We also met a large group of backpackers on spring break from Wisconsin, and enjoyed talking with them. They said they specifically loved meeting thru-hikers and it was amusing to feel a little like celebrities while we had lunch.

The shelter that night had extra cool views and extra cool people, many of whom we’d met at the hostel and shared the previous night with as well. It felt great to be with a crew that we vibed well with for a couple days. I enjoyed a beautiful sunset from the shelter, all pinks and blues. “I love it here,” I wrote that night. That was both Sophie and my favorite day on trail thus far.

The next morning, I was horrified to find a bear canister open on its side, its contents strewn about, with the lid nearby looking very beat up. I asked around and thankfully it wasn’t anybody’s there, so apparently it was from days ago. Still, it was disturbing evidence of recent bear activity. We were the last to leave camp that morning, which always feels rough, but we’re hiking our own hike! It was not a super hard day of hiking, but a thoroughly enjoyable one. NC continues to impress with views.

That day, we reached a major milestone: the 100 mile mark! We climbed the steepest section of trail so far in the brief ascent up Albert Mt., which marks 100 miles. This steep ascent definitely reminded me of the Whites, and I had a lot of fun with it; it was my favorite stretch of trail so far. Our trail friend Bluegrass called me a “damned mountain goat” 🙂 We take those.

The fire tower on top of Albert Mt. was closed, but we could still climb most of it and got some awesome views. Sophie and I had fun brainstorming things that we’ll do to mark every 100 miles on trail, and we celebrated accordingly.

There was a huge crowd at the shelter that night, by far the biggest we’d seen. After I had a disappointing dinner, everyone gathered around a campfire and hung out for quite a while, which lifted my spirits. It felt like a real community, which was really nice (even if the group was perhaps a little too big for me to feel totally comfortable). Still wasn’t able to get a sing-along going, but I’ll keep trying.

That night it rained, and it kept raining as I packed up my tent, trying mostly unsuccessfully to keep the tent itself dry. Sophie had wisely stayed in the shelter for the first time. The rain made for a miserable morning, but luckily we only went 0.2 miles down to a road to be driven into Franklin, NC, where we were planning on taking a “nero” day. A nero, or near zero, means only hiking a little bit before going into town for the rest of the day (0.2 miles is just about as nero as you can get!). My spirits recovered quickly after we caught a shuttle into town. I was especially excited to be in town, since I stank! It felt like I was truly beginning to become hiker trash. In Franklin, we hung up our gross wet gear in our motel room. I felt pretty bad for how dirty we made the room; it was absolutely filthy in there and it stressed me out a bit, frankly. We had a nice day off in Franklin showering, getting some new gear (and free AT buffs!) at the outfitter there, doing our laundry, and meeting up with a very special guest that would be joining me on trail for the next week: my brother Daniel! I hoped he would have just as good as a time as I had had over this past week. Stay tuned!