Begin: Day 147- Saturday, September 14, Carver Gap , TN
End: Day 152- Thursday , September 19, Flint Mt. Shelter
Most Trail Miles in a day this period: 21.1
Total Trail Miles Hiked: 1607
Miles to Springer Mtn., GA: 327.7
Photos corresponding to this week’s post can be found in the “09-08 TN” folder. Sorting by name is recommended.
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Saturday 9/14- Day 147
Start: Carver Gap, TN - 380.8
End: US 19E, Mtn Harbor, TN - 395.6
Miles: 14.8
Ascent: 2348 | Descent: 4964
We woke up from Mountain Harbor Inn and probably had the best breakfast we have had on trail since the beginning. Mountain Harbor Inn is a bed-and-breakfast, but it is also a hiker hostel so the food is very good. Mountain Harbor Inn also has a restaurant that is open from 4 PM to 9 PM, so that is where we ended up eating both of our nights that we stayed with them.
The Mountain Harbor shuttle took us to Carver gap for a slack pack this day. The allowed us to hike from Carver gap back to the bed-and-breakfast and to avoid a significant ascent. We ended up starting about 5500 feet of elevation in a very foggy condition (around 9:30 am). The Roan Highlands on a clear day would have fantastic views of balds and grasslands, but we missed the first part, but the views on the second part were fantastic when we went over Little hump and Hump mountains. Our highest elevation of the day was just under 6000 feet.
The wind today was quite formidable and at times blowing us off the trail a tad when we were walking up the balds.
Since we didn’t have our full packs, we made very good time and arrived back at the bed-and-breakfast around 5 pm.
Sunday 9/15- Day 148
Start: Carver Gap, TN - 380.8
End: N of Iron Mtn Gap, NC - 365.8
Miles: 15.0
Ascent: 2865 | Descent: 4221
After another delicious breakfast at Mountain Harbor Inn, we took the shuttle again back to Carver gap where we continued on our southbound trek.
We immediately started climbing, and we went over Roan Mountain, which ended up being one of our higher elevations of the trip of 6190 feet.
It was cloudy and breezy again, but the fog was less and views were more numerous earlier in the day.
We passed the side of the old Cloudland hotel along our trip and saw a hiker (mountain toad)we hiked with some during our northbound section. He was also doing a flip-flop but completing his trip from a different direction so it was really neat to pass by him and we chatted for a few minutes.
We ended the day at a stealth tent site at the top of a small hill around 5:30 PM.
It should be noted that the sections of trail in the last few days have been bordering the North Carolina and Tennessee stateline. At any particular time we didn’t quite know which state we were in but we have officially entered North Carolina at least a few times over the past few days.
Monday, 9/16- Day 149
Start: N of Iron Mtn Gap, NC - 365.8
End: Erwin - 344.7
Miles: 21.1
Ascent: 3376 | Descent: 5850
We had every intention of only hiking 16 miles today and then going into Irwin Tennessee on Tuesday. However, when we woke up and saw the weather, there was a tropical disturbance coming in from the east that was going to impact our night and hike the next day. So we decided to go ahead and push on to Irwin today with a 21 mile day. We had a shuttle scheduled for Tuesday so I texted our shuttle driver and let him know we would be pushing it and if he could pick us up late in the day Monday. He indicated that he could.
We started the hike quickly since the elevation gain was not over the top. The one large climb of the day was up Unica mountain where we surpassed 5000 feet for the day. This was a neat climb since the vegetation at the top looked very much like Maine.
After getting water around mile nine, we stopped for lunch at a spot called "beauty spot”. It was a open field with 360° views of the mountains around it. It was a very nice rest. Checking the weather at lunch, it looked like we probably were gonna get rained on before we made it, but the rain did not look too bad so we pushed on.
About 9 miles from the end, we passed by a hiker hiking north and he indicated that our shuttle driver was at the next pass and that he would be willing to take our packs from us and allow us to slack pack the last 8 miles of the trip. We quickly proceeded down hill and met our shuttle driver, Steve and another fellow that was providing trail magic at the road crossing. We had fruit and a piece of cake and gave Steve our pack and we proceeded on our merry way. Steve was going to meet us at the actual spot in Irwin, where he was going to pick us up. Super nice guy!
We hiked the rest of the way(with the expected rain), which was pretty much downhill. Our High Point of the day was well above 5000 and we ended up well below 2000 when we arrived at Erwin.
Steve was waiting for us at the parking lot and he proceeded to shuttle us into Erwin for a luxurious night at Super 8 motel.
Since rain is expected on Tuesday, we will be staying put and resupplying at Food city.
Tuesday 9/17- Day
150
Erwin, TN- zero day
We woke up to rain this morning, but fortunately we had already planned on not hiking today. We ended up doing our normal routine of resupply at food city and then walking to a couple restaurants through the day to have some meals.
Nothing else to report except we did spend some time resting our feet after the previous 21 mile day.
Tomorrow we will begin our four day trip to Hot Springs, North Carolina. This is pretty much the last stop before we enter the Smoky Mountains National Park.
Wednesday, 9/18 Day 151
Start: Erwin, TN - 344.7
End: Bald Mtn Shelter - 327.7
Miles: 17.0
Ascent: 5804 | Descent: 2436
Steve picked us up at super eight at 7:30 AM in the morning and Shuttled us back to the trailhead.
There was a very long climb at the beginning of the day with lots of views as we switchbacked up the mountain. There was a lot of significant climbs today and we actually broke our record for the most ascent in one day. Overall, we felt pretty good after such a large amount of climbing.
Once we got to camp and got the tent up, it started to rain, but it ended before we needed to cook or anything like that.
Having said that I knew we were gonna wake up to a wet rain fly.
Thursday, 9/19- Day 152
Start: Bald Mtn Shelter - 327.7
End: Flint Mtn Shelter - 308.8
Miles: 18.9
Ascent: 3980 | Descent: 5469
Knowing we had a long day we got our normal early start. The rainfly was quite wet, but knowing that there’s no way to dry it out before the sun gets up very high we packed it away wet with the expectations that we have a spot along the way to take it out and dry it out.
We were treated to a very pretty meadow first thing in the morning as the sun was coming up. It was clear skies with a 360° view with clouds in the valleys so the mountains poked out of the clouds. We climbed big bald, which was our High Point of the day of just over 5500 feet. During our climb, we saw many deer on the way up.
Once we got to our shelter, we dried out the tent again, and unfortunately, had to pitch our tent on a relatively slopey site since there were a few other hikers there that were taking up the prime spots. This ended up being a pretty tough day with lemonade and my feet, both being sore at the end of the day.
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