2017 Appalachian Hike

I ate a lot while I was in town yesterday. There is this thing we call “hiker hunger “. While on the trail most people don’t consume near the calories they are burning. My typical day begins with breakfast being a Clif Bar or oatmeal depending on whether I feel like cooking or not. Lunch is usually trail mix and beef jerky. Supper is usually a dehydrated meal. Spaghetti with meat sauce is my favorite now. So when we get to town we eat a lot. 

So when I got to the Super 8 yesterday at 11:00am my room wasn’t ready so I walked to McDonalds and had a value meal. Dead Man Ale told me about a chicken place called Bojangles. So at 2:00 I went there and got a eight piece pack of chicken to go and took it back to my room and ate four pieces. I put the rest in my refrigerator in my room. Then at around 6:00 Dead Guy Ale and I walked to Walgreens to get some supplies and then we stopped at the liquor store and got a six pack of beer. We went back to the motel and ordered Pizza Hut delivery. I had a medium thin crust pepperoni lovers. My favorite. I ate the whole thing. 

This morning I ended up getting an earlier shuttle back to Sam’s Gap than I expected. Rayden went with me. When we got to the trail head at 10:00am I pulled out my four pieces of left over chicken and Rayden and I split it. Great mid morning snack. 

The long climb up to Big Bald was pretty good. As I gained altitude I got back into the snow and ice. It hadn’t started thawing yet. I got to the top and it was beautiful. 

As I left Big Bald at about 1:00pm the sun was thawing every thing. It was muddy as I began my decent. I consider myself pretty trail savvy as I’ve been on plenty of slippery, muddy trails running. My running friends know how slippery thawing mud can be. Sometimes more slippery than ice. Well you have probably already figured out, I fell. 

As I went down I I twisted and my lower left leg went under me before I landed on my butt. I wrenched my knee a little as I went down to. I also broke one of my trekking poles. So here I was with mud all over my pants, hands and the bottom and back of my back pack. 

I momentarily let this put me in a bad mood. My clean pants were now all muddy and my favorite piece of equipment, my trekking pole is broken. I descended a little further until I came to a big snow drift and plopped down into it. I literally sat and rolled around in the snow to try to get the mud off me. By now it’s about 40 degrees. 

Next I hiked to the Big Bald Shelter and took my pack off and used the wet snow to clean my hands and my pants so more. I also had some trail mix and jerky. 

Next stop was Little Bald. Also very beautiful. Descending from Little Bald was very challenging. It was steep and slippery. Alternating between snow, ice and mud. It took me almost two hours to go one mile. 

Once I descended far enough to get below the snow line it go much easier. 

I hiked alone all day. I did pass Maple early in the day. I met a new guy today. His name is Rocket Fire. 

I made it to No Business Knob Shelter at about 6:50pm and immediately started settling up my tent. Engineer, Low Tech, Cousin Eddie, King James, his dog Moja and Rocket Fire are all here. There is another guy I passed on the trail today that is at this site also. His name is Gourmet. There’s a couple other guys here I didn’t meet. 

King James built a fire and he, Engineer and I ate together. Everyone else had got here earlier and had already eaten. Then I used my duct tape and worked on my broken trekking pole. I think I can get by for now. 

I am sleeping with my water filtration system in my sleeping bag again tonight. It’s supposed to get down into the twenties again tonight. No wind or snow though. I’m not sure how long I’m going tomorrow.