Clingman's Dome

Trail Names

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that we now have our trail names. We are now referred to as "The Maine-iacs" Dad is "Uno" and I am "Dewey" meaning "one" and "two." It wasn't our first choice, but the name spread like wildfire and now precedes us down the trail. As an example, two days ago while hiking we came across two thru hikers who we had never met before camped out next to the trail. We introduced myself and mentioned in passing that we were from Maine. His eyes lit up and he asked, excitedly, "Oh, are you guys the father-son Maine-iacs we have been hearing about?" The trail is kind of weird and spooky like that at times.

Hitting Our Stride

Greetings from sunny Fontana Dam, North Carolina! We crossed into North Carolina about four days ago and have been met with spring-like conditions: sun, blue skies, and budding flowers. We are currently staying the night at this weird, kitschy resort town..actually I don't think "town" is the right word...perhaps "complex" best describes the cluster of touristy stores and hotels whose sole purpose is to bleed dollars from rich Carolinians who visit to escape the summer heat.

North Carolina, on the whole, has been a pleasurable place to walk through. The past week has been a rugged and challenging stretch of trail, a roller coaster ride taking us up mountain peaks as high as 5,300 feet (higher than anything in Maine) and then testing our knees by descending rapidly to what seems like sea level. Most days, we finish exhausted, sore, and we are barely able to cook our Lipton rice dishes before falling into a hiking-induced coma. As a result, Fontana is a welcome respite for two trail-weary souls.

Though the trail has been hard, Dad and I agree that North Carolina puts Georgia to shame. The mountains are more impressive and offer better views along the way. The past few days, we have summited several peaks called "balds," so named because they are devoid of any sort of growth save grass and puckerbrush. Siler's Bald, the first Bald we came to on the trail, offered us a spectacular view of the Georgia and North Carolina mountains. It was truly stunning. We found out later that there are several legends as to where the Balds came from. One lady told us that the Cheerokee believe that at one point in their past, a great bird called the thunderbird was terrorizing their villages and stealing young children. The Cherokee cleared the tops of the peaks to keep watch for the birds and warn of any incoming attacks.

We have been fortunate these past few days to run into a number of "Trail Angels." They are hiking enthusiasts who stand at trail heads with food and drinks for Thru hikers. One day we had just finished our fifteen mile trek from Muskrat shelter to Betty Creek campsite to find a former thru hiker ready with a cooler full of ice-cold beer and Pepsi...I tell ya, Busch Light never tasted so good in my life. Two days later we were hiking up Wayah Bald, where the trail parallels an auto road and from out of nowhere a peppy woman with a thick southern drawl came bounding up to us with coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts and sent us on our way with a prayer. Not two miles later, we summited Wayah Bald and found, wouldn't you know it, a hiker appreciation barbeque put on by a backpacking club from Anderson, South Carolina (If any of you are reading, thanks again!). We were greeted like heroes and offered hamburgers, Chili dogs, ice cold soda and some good company. Although we had fifteen miles to put in that day, we lingered for two hours eating and talking with those nice folks. We are beginning to love the south.

Evenings on the trail are perhaps my favorite time of day, when Thru hikers huddle together at the picnic table willing their stoves to cook their Ramen noodles or Lipton rice faster. You can tell a lot about hikers by the way they cook their dinner. The people who have super efficient alcohol stoves and eat only Ramen noodles for dinner are usually the impatient type who just want to get their dinner over and done with so they can go to bed.
Others are more thoughtful about what they prepare, not content with the daily monotony of noodles and pop tarts. They hike a bit slower, carry a bigger pack, but they relish every step and appreciate their meals at the end of the day.
Still others (albeit a slim minority) don't even bother to cook at all, subsisting primarily on big hunks of beef jerky alongside spoonfuls of Jiffy peanut butter. Well, these folks are just plain odd in my book, some of the many loonies you meet along the way.

In any case, after the stoves are put away, hikers linger for a while before bed, recounting the day's events and retelling horror stories about blisters, bad weather and brutal climbs. The funny thing is that the trail draws such a diverse crowd from all walks of life that most of the time the people you end up spending the night with in a shelter are people you would have no business with out in the real world. It can make for some awkward silences and weird situations. I, however, have discovered three topics that can always be counted on to get you through those awkward moments with that crazy dude with the snaggle tooth who has hiked the trail seven or ten times.

1. Equipment: "So, why'd you choose the __insert type of equipment and brand here__" is an excellent way to start any conversation. Everyone out here is a techno geek looking for ways to trim a few pounds off their pack, and all are willing to go on for hours about every single piece of equipment they brought, anything from their tent to their toilet paper.

[As a side note, people bring some crazy stuff to hike with. At one point along the trail we overtook a scout troop from Alabama on a six day, twenty mile hike. As we passed, one scout was out in the woods using, as we later found out, a port-a-potty, specially designed for pooping in the woods. I guess that is a skill not covered in the scout handbook!]

2. Food: We eat a lot, and we are starving most of the time, so this is somewhat of a no-brainer. What is weird, though, is that all of our conversations at some point come back to food. We could be talking about something completely unrelated to food such as fiscal policy in Soviet Russia, and someone will always interrupt with a story about a hamburger they ate in Hiawasee. I think that this is only going to get worse.

3. Pain: Just as motorcycle bikers compare scars received from bar fights, AT hikers verbally joust every evening over the size of their blisters and muscle aches and pains. One guy we hiked with would always pull out the trump card: He had a blister that he could see the bone of his foot through. It would generally stop a conversation cold.

Occasionally, as night falls on our campsite, we are able to watch the sun set from our sleeping bags, as it casts the mountainous horizon in a halo of purples, pinks and blues while ushering in the kind of perfect silence only known to those who make their lives in the mountains. Each night, as we drift off to sleep, and the memory of the day's journey fades from our muscles, we are left with a deep sense of accomplishment...160 down, 2015 to go. Katahdin is calling us, and we are slowly making our way home.

Trail Magic on Wayah Bald!

April 18, Hiawasee GA

First Stop...Hiawasee GA

After nearly sixty miles of arduous hiking we have arrived, albeit sore and blistered at the booming metropolis of Hiawasee Georgia. After a good steak dinner, and a good nights rest we'll head out again tomorrow for Fontana Dam North Carolina.

A Rough Start:
We have had a wild first week on the AT. Although the hiking has been somewhat easy, mother nature pulled a bait and switch on us. Getting off the plane in Atlanta we were tricked into thinking that Georgia had nothing but balmy sunshine, blooming rhododendrons and pleasant walking weather in store for our first days on the trail. We were sorely mistaken.

Our first day on the trail went well enough. After our successful Step It Up rally (consisting only of my dad and I and the wily ATC ridge runner) , we put in an easy seven miles and spent the night Hawk Mountain shelter. That night, we were nearly flooded out of camp by four inches of rain. Fortunately, the rain subsided by morning leaving the forest bathed in a murky fog that stuck to our skin and packs as we trekked north to our next campsite. Though the rains had passed the worst of the storm had yet to hit us. The winds picked up and a wet snow began to fall, leaving us shivering in our capilene t-shirts and shorts. By noon, the winds had reached their full fury, threatening to knock over aging trees and carry away any small, hapless animal misfortunate enough to be born without claws or opposable thumbs. After a gruelling nineteen mile hike, we staggered, cold, stiff, and snowblind to Woods Hole shelter, only to find that it was full of half-hypothermic AT Thu hikers, shivering in their down sleeping bags as the wind swept through the lean-to. Frustrated and at our wits-end, we consoled ourselves with hot Jello and Lipton noodles, set up our "tent," (a non-freestanding shelter that would have worked better as a kite at this point), and attempted to sleep as the the tempest raged on outside.

Although we found a quarter inch of snow on the ground when we woke the next morning, the sun was shining, and we pack up camp in high spirits, determined to put the bad weather behind us. Since that wintry night, the weather has been sunny, dry and cool, which has allowed us to more fully enjoy the beauty of the Georgian Mountains.

Trail Names:
For those of you unfamilar with the Appalachian trail, you should know that there is a crazy sub-culture of trail enthusiasts. One of the most sacred rituals of the AT Thru hike is the trail name. Before dad and I left for the trail, people would often ask us, "So, have you picked a trail name yet?" The problem is that you don't pick your own trail name, it has to emerge organically through your interactions with with other people along the trail. People will even go so far to give their hiking dogs a trail name. I read about another guy who gave his dog the name, "Barney, emergency trail stew."

Last night I was talking with one hiker who had been trying for the past few days to christen the newbie hikers he met. As he tells it, he tried to name a former Navy Seal "hotlips." As you can imagine, the name didn't go over so well and this particular imposing and muscular individual threatened to bring a quick and painful death to anyone who even whispered the name to him. As you can imagine, everyone laughed, called him Hotlips despite his threat, and thus his trail name was born.


As for us, we have yet to decide what to name ourselves. A few hikers have taken to calling us the "maine-iacs," but I think that it lacks a certain something. I was thinking about calling ourselves Rocky and Bullwinkle. We still have time. We'll think about it some more and get back to you.

Step it Up 2007, Springer Mountain

Neels Gap, 4/16/07

Via cell phone...Sean and Mark are at Neels Gap, say the hiking is "like climbing Chick Hill." Very graded and gradual. No blisters, shelters are crowded with both people and mice; the "Mouse Olympics" were in full swing. Putting up the tent in 30 MPH winds was exciting. Received 1/2 inch of snow and around 2 inches of rain. Mark says "I brought too much food." (Can that possibly be true?!) Sean's comment, " Despite my best efforts I have not lost Dad yet." He tried to lose him at Logan Airport, but Mark had merely been taken aside to having his pack emptied and searched for contraband. As a result the dangerous Peanut Butter was confiscated. Now it's 30 miles to town, where they will log on and write more.
See red arrow on map below for location.

Neels Gap

T-Minus two weeks

Departure date: April 14, 2007... check back soon!