| Mile | 218.3 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 10.5 |
| Day | 23 |
Had some people ask if there are any more “crazy character” stories. Most people here are pretty chill and normal honestly. Painfully so. Coming out of the NOC to Sassafras gap tho we passed a guy named Trainwreck. It is a brutal climb for sure and was starting to get real hot, so no judgement on being slow thru it (I was for sure slow). He showed up at Sassafras shelter later and started setting up a hammock, so I was chatting with him for a bit. He’d done the AT thru previously, knew a ton about hammocks and whatnot, but was complaining like mad about all the food he was carrying. He pulled out his food bag, dug out a bunch of standard backpacking food, and then pulled a 2lb bag of protein powder. Made a protein shake, told us “I dont even want to eat any of this other food, but I feel like I have to carry it”. Made another protein shake. Saw him walking around the Fontana village where he told me he was taking a day off, haven’t seen him since.
There’s also a pretty famous guy we met at a hostel named “Hot Tent”. He had a 60lb pack with a full canvas tent and wood stove, which I’m sure was warm, but he was struggling to do 5 miles a day. He also had a gun in his pack. It took two hostel pack shakedowns to get him below 30lbs base weight, but he’s still out there from what I hear.
There’s been a running joke in our group (which I guess is now just bladerunner and I) that “after we pass X landmark, it’s smooth sailing”. It is something that has been told to us by so many people so many times and every single time it has been completely 100% wrong. I think Slim Jim from the Franklin hostel was the one that told us that “after newfound gap, its smooth sailing”. He may have been right.
We all got breakfast at the Microtel. I ordered an Uber back to SMNP from Cherokee, and it paired us with a driver that cancelled at the last minute. Had to book a 100 dollar local cab, but we got back on.
Weather was pretty much perfect hiking weather, which showed, as the park was slammed with people. I ran into Upside hiking and talking with a couple day hikers from Tennessee who come out to the park a lot. They were real fun guys and took us down a side trail to Charlie’s Bunion, which was packed, but still a really sick view.
(You can see the bunion jetting out in this one)
The hike was 11ish miles to pecks corner, which isn’t a ton, but it felt like nothing. Air was cool, all the spruce firs cast a ton of shade, and the elevation changes were real smooth. It was really close to what I had first imagined the trail would be like in my head, and as much as I still think the SMNP sucks, I would 100% recommend to anyone to just park at newfound gap and take the AT north until you get tired. Views felt like they were hitting every 100 feet, and it never at any point felt like a slog.
Made it to Pecks Corner super early in the day, could easily have pushed to the next shelter but bladerunner wanted to take it easy on his knee and schedule wise it didn’t make a ton of sense to push. Upside decided to push further tho, but he’s a late riser so maybe I’ll catch him tomorrow still.
Sat at the shelter chatting with people as they rolled in, a good mix of section hiking college kids and thru hikers. The section hikers were super interested in any thru hiking stories we had, and some of the more seasoned thru hikers had some interesting ones. There’s a guy named Preacher here that seems to have endless crazy tales from his attempt last year. I just realized I completely forgot to eat dinner even because we all were kind of locked into listening to an old guy with a deep Georgian accent swing a knife around wildly while telling us which shelters up north are right near strip clubs and casinos for 6 hours straight. Ate a ton yesterday tho so it’s all good I think.
Really good day today. Tomorrow is the last full day in the smokies. Morning has a steep ascent but the next 48 hours is almost all downhill.
No service at this spot as it is deep in a valley. Need to book a room at Hot Springs soon.
Spooky ice patch (I still don’t have spikes)