The Appalachian Trail Hike—Finally!—Friday!

Friday:

After Phillip and Archie got up Friday morning, I did pull back the corners of the fitted sheet and found a mattress cover that I couldn’t remove to check the mattress itself. I know there was SOMETHING there, as my legs were chewed up. Whether they were fleas or bedbugs, I don’t know. Bugs already and we hadn’t even hit the trail yet!!

We arrived in the Cades Cove area around 9am to meet our friends Dawn and Tyler. We were actually early in our arrival, but the mountain-y roads are very narrow and wind around a lot. And we got behind the stereotypical very slow old man in a very large car. Phillip successfully intimidated him into pulling over to let the long line of cars pass him by. We imagined him shaking his fist as we passed by yelling about the whippersnappers driving too darned recklessly; you know…driving at thirty miles per hour instead of fifteen!

When we arrived at Cades Cove, I told Phillip that perhaps we should pull over and call to figure out exactly where to meet with Tyler and Dawn. But he passed by the last pullover area. Directly after that, we hit the eleven-mile stretch of the one-way circle. I got fussed at for forgetting to mention that he wouldn’t be able to turn around after that point, but I figured my work was done when he didn’t take my suggestion to pull over. Thankfully, we were able to find a little road that cut through the circle and therefore, we didn’t have to spend the hour or so it would’ve taken to complete the circle. We met up with Tyler and Dawn and loaded up the jeep for the trip to Fontana Dam. Our hike was to begin at Fontana Dam and end at Cades Cove. So the plan was to have one vehicle in each place. The ride to Fontana Dam was down a little tiny dirt road. It took almost an hour to go the eight miles because of the winding and primitive nature of the road. There were streams crossing the road as well. Here we are stopping for a photo opp:

This is the jeep loaded up with our gear:



The ride was long, but very beautiful. We made it to Fontana Dam eventually. We explored for just a bit and talked to the rangers there. One showed us where we were headed that very day: Shuckstack Tower. If you double click the picture below, on the peak at the center stands a very, very, minuscule object. This is the tower where we were headed that very day:



In my mind, I was extremely doubtful we would make it THAT FAR straight up a mountain in ONE DAY! I was hoping the guy was mistaken. But he wasn’t.

Here are some photos of us at the dam before we began the trail. Or, if you will, some Dam Photos. (Borrowing from a Chevy Chase "Vacation" movie)







Tyler was gracious enough to drop us off at the trailhead about a mile away, and then park the jeep. Here I am at the trailhead about to begin our adventure:



Our first day’s destination can be seen on the sign: Campsite 113, which was 4.5 miles from the trailhead. Which doesn’t sound like much; I can do four miles easily. Even pregnant, a four-mile walk is not really that hard. Except this was all uphill. Or perhaps I should say up-mountain. Every single bit of it. And not just slight inclines. Some were quite steep for those of us carrying our belongings on our back (and a baby in my belly!). It was quite taxing, to say the least. There were some points where I felt like I would never catch my breath. My legs were really burning up some of the trail! I was wishing I had trained a lot more, but there was really no way to train for that…Even in Mount Airy! Some of the uphills were quite grueling.

At one point in the trail, I saw a blue ribbon on the ground and found that it was attached to a whistle that someone had dropped. Of course, Archie was very interested in the whistle and began blowing it every so often. At one point, we were on a bit of a ledge: had mountain above us, and mountain below us. After Archie’s whistle blow, we heard this huge extended crashing sound below us. Then a smaller, but crashing sound above us. Then, all of a sudden, we saw a bear cub above us. Apparently Archie had startled Mama Bear and baby. We quickly came to the consensus that we should hike through at a very rapid pace. Being between Mama bear and baby bear is not the place you want to be out in the wilderness! I would’ve loved to get a photo of the cub, but getting away was the first order of business! I don’t think anyone has ever hiked so quickly uphill as we did. All of a sudden, the weight of the packs was forgotten for a time while we got the heck outta there. Everyone was gasping by the time we got to a distance that felt a little safer.

I didn’t take as many pictures as usual that first day because I was using every minute of any breaks we took to recover from the previous uphill battle. We did make it to a nice lookout spot, which made the uphill hike worthwhile. The picture doesn’t do it justice. It was a gorgeous spot. Below it you can see Archie and Phillip exploring.





It was during this break in the hike that I noticed something. My hands had sort of a 'tight' feeling for some time, but it didn't hurt, so I didn't pay too much attention. So when I took my pack off, I looked down at my hands and noticed the severe case of sausage fingers I had! My hands had swollen to probably twice their normal size! My wedding ring wouldn't budge. If you just looked at my hands you might guess that I weighed three hundred pounds! Apparently, with the pack on and just swinging my arms down at my sides to hike had caused quite the fluid retention. Tyler and Dawn let me use their hiking poles which helped the swelling go down tremendously. Next time we hike that kind of terrain, I will definitely have hiking poles! Once we made it to camp, my hands had returned to their normal size. For the rest of the hike I clasped and unclasped my hands frequently next to my shoulders to make sure that didn't happen again!

After another grueling uphill climb, we made it to Shuckstack Tower, just like the Ranger said we would! I guess he was telling the truth that we would make it in one day! If you double-click the picture below, you can just barely see Fontana Dam just behind the peak in the center of the picture. We were just there that morning!! Can you believe we hiked so far?? I can’t!!

The above picture was taken from the top of the tower. There were very old and fragile looking steps that went very, very far up. I was too much of a chicken. I could only make it to the first landing. Archie didn’t make it very far at first, but changed his mind about being scared while Phillip, Dawn and Tyler were up at the top. I told him he had to wait for Phillip to take him up there. My hands and feet were sweating just being on the first landing at treetop level! Plus, I figured the wind way up there would make the tower sway a bit. Not the place for me! The only proof that I was even in the area was this photo taken of us with our feet firmly on the ground in front of an old stone chimney that was near the tower:

Here either Tyler or Dawn took a great picture showing the vast heights. As you can see, they were well above the height of the trees. Yikes!



Thankfully, Shuckstack was a little over a mile from our campsite destination for the evening! We made it to our campsite and got the tents set up before dark. I was exhausted! The weird thing was, we met a woman there who was doing ten days along the AT who recognized her whistle! So we gave her whistle back and told her how handy it was that we had found it when we did. What a coincidence! She was glad to get her whistle back because they had lots more days to go and probably lots more bears to scare away than we did! Here is our campsite:



A very nice spot. However, that’s just what it was…a spot…meaning no potable water, no bathroom facilities, no garbage cans…nothing. Just a place to put your tent. Which was fine. There was a little stream running through the site. I don’t know what we would’ve done without Tyler sharing his water filter and helping us out with the water. We definitely didn’t carry near enough! That’ll be our first purchase next time we backpack! A good water filter!

We ate our dinner of lasagna (prepared similar to MRE’s for those in Mobile and other Hurricane areas who enjoyed this fine version of military fare) and Snickers bars. It was very filling and not bad tasting either. Just a bit messy, though. There were places designated to string your food and garbage up from the bears. So we were sure to do that, especially after our little bear scare earlier that day! We definitely didn’t want to carry food smell on our clothing into our tents! I'd have to say that the people at the campsites were really interesting folks. We met some through-hikers (going from Springer Mountain in Georgia all the way to Mount Katadin in Maine) and some were section hikers (doing the AT a little bit at a time). Some were celebrating college graduations. What is it about guys who graduate college that makes them want to go camping? The people were very friendly and fun to chat with. The Appalachian Trail hikers had interesting stories. The AT in the Smokies is a bit far for the day hikers to venture, so there was good camaraderie among the folks camping. News along the trail seemed to pass from person to person very quickly. I'll explain more when I publish the post for Saturday.

Folks at the campsites seemed to take to Archie pretty quickly, as I guess they don't see many six year olds hiking the Appalachian Trail. Or pregnant women, for that matter. Archie enjoyed showing anyone and everyone who would pay attention his very own hydration pack and his very own multi-tool, which contained his knife, fork and spoon. He loved chatting with everyone and despite the exhausting hike we did, he was flitting about the camp like he had done nothing but rest all day.

All in all, I slept pretty well that night. We didn’t use the rain fly over the tent and it was nice looking up at the sky through the mesh roof of the tent. We stuffed clothes in our sleeping bag stuff sacks to make pillows. At home I am not comfortable enough to sleep without a pillow support for the baby in my belly. So it was a bit of a struggle to get comfortable, but I was out pretty quick. I guess all that uphill hiking really wore me out! Sometime early in the morning, it began lightly raining. I woke Phillip up. Just as soon as he got the rain fly on, the rain quit. It was the only rain we saw during the trip.

Saturday still to come.