Friday, May 30, 2014

4/25-4/29 Erwin, TN to Roan Mountain, TN

4/25  The Mountain Inn had their own breakfast buffet, so I hit that up as soon as I woke up. It started raining so I just screwed around for several hours doing absolutely nothing at all. As soon as the rain stopped I decided to hike to the nest shelter 4 miles away. I have been feeling really shitty all day and I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick...


4/26 I woke up feeling 1000x better. I got on the trail around 10 am. A short while after I ran into some trail magic at Indian Grave Gap. After that I started my ascent of Unaka Mountain.At the top of the mountain is a dense spruce forest. It was by far one of the most serene places on the trail. It was all shaded, you could smell the spruce. I wandered off the trail for a bit and just sat down to take it all in. I really wanted to camp up here but I was low on water and the next water source is several miles north, so I moved on. I strolled into Cherry Gap Shelter where I met some former thru hikers who hiked the trail last year. After talking to them for awhile I decided I would stay here for the night.

Spruce forest on Unaka Mountain



4/27 After about 3 miles of hiking I ran into some trail magic. I sat there and was talking to the guy for awhile when a big van pulled up. A trail angel named Rob Bird was dropping off a bunch of hikers from a blue grass festival that was going on in Erwin the previous 2 days. Here is where I met the Pinata Party Posse. I had met them before but this was my first time actually hiking with them. They ended up hiking on further while I decided to stealth camp with a fellow hiker that goes by Merman.



4/28 Merman and I woke up early to try to beat the rain that we are supposed to be getting today. We hiked up Roan Mountain and it was super cloudy. You couldn't see shit. The spruce forest at the top was great. I hiked over some very scenic spots but all the views were obscured by the clouds. I hiked on to Overmountain Shelter and arrived a couple of ours before the rain started. The clouds were fewer in number here so there was some views that were spectacular. Now for all you who don't know this, Overmountain Shelter is a big giant red barn that can hold about 50 hikers. It has been my favorite shelter on the trail. At the shelter was the Pinata Party Posse, which consists of Southbound, Big Spoon, Sprinkle Burst, Cupcake, Sloth, Marathon, and Big Sexy.

Looking South at Roan Mountain

Overmountain Shelter

View from the shelter
Sprinkleburst serenading the view


4/29 It stormed all last night, the wind was howling, it was raining, but all was good he old raggedy barn held up.I woke up around 7 am and decided I was gonna hike with the Pinata Party Posse. We got on the trail when the rain let up a bit. As we started hiking up the balds we were met with 50mph sustained winds and about 70mph gusts. Hiking was a challenge we had to lean into the wind to keep from getting blown over and we had to yell at the top of our lungs to just her each from about 10 feet away. We couldn't see all but 10feet in front of us, it was quite exhilarating. Hump Mountain was the worst, it was about 3miles of just open meadow. Absolutely no trees at all. We officially crossed into Tennessee after we descended down Hump Mountain. As we made it down to the gap we headed toward Mountain Harbour Bed and Breakfast. Due to the nasty weather they allowed all 8 of us to cram into one room. We got a shuttle into the town with to eat and resupply. Later on that night we celebrated Marathons birthday by playing some English drinking games taught to us by Big Spoon who is from England.

The Holy Cow Burger in Roan Mountain, TN

Big Spoon in our crammed room at the BnB


The weather for this section was kind of shitty, but it is still one of my favorite sections of the trail so far. I met up with some of the most amazing people I've had the pleasure of hiking with and I am truly enjoying the trail more than ever right now.


Happy Trails!!!

Lucas " Smokie" Varnadore

1 comment:

  1. I would love to have a "holy cow" burger right about now! LOL

    ReplyDelete