Days 17 & 18
Day 17: Mile 102 | Long Branch Shelter
We woke up at 8am in Rock Gap Shelter. In a small puddle of water. We looked up and realized the entire roof had duct tape patches on it that we hadn't seen in the dark. I was really groggy from the Seroquel. Slowly we got up and packed up our packs. The rain beat down. I was so sick of rain.
We left around 9am and slowly made our way southbound up to Albert Mountain. I hiked a bit ahead of Michelin and waited for him at Long Branch Shelter. We were both feeling down and achey. We discussed and decided not to stop at this shelter. We could make it over Albert today or camp at the gap right before. We arrived at the gap to 15 'NO CAMPING' signs. We walked a few feet away from the gap and stumbled across the 100 mile sign.
I felt like a fraud and a failure. In the rain I posed next to the 100 mile sign, trying my best to look happy for this momentous occasion:
Cold and wet next to this all important sign, the moment didn't feel real. After tomorrow I would technically, yes, have walked 100 miles. But not without emotional turmoil, exhaustion, injury, and complicated friendships.
Upset about the rain, we trudged on up to Albert Mountain which was supposed to be my very first 'real' view. I had yet to see a single view because of all of the rain and fog (or 'smoke' as they call it here). The view was non-existent. I was so angry. I had no reason to be angry. That's not true. I had every reason to be angry. It felt like I'd been living in a cloud for a month!! It was depressing and cold and ANNOYING. I just wanted to get to camp and have a fire and socialize. Instead we get to camp eat and get dry as fast as possible and go to bed at exactly dark to stay warm with little socializing. I was sick of it! I was sick of not seeing views that I climbed thousands of feet upwards for! Sick of having frozen shoes in the morning and eating when I felt nauseous and feeling behind. It all was getting to me.
Here's the view we saw: (I was too exhausted at this point to even cry at my disappointment)
Eventually we got over our annoyance and pain and put our packs on to go down the other side. We attempted to start downward: one clumsy idiot and her friend with a knee injury over a sheer rock face... I, of course (living up to my name), fell flat on my ass. A large bruise now plasters it to prove it. We tried to continue after the fall and kept slipping. It was rough. We called Whisperer, who had attempted this section Southbound just a few days before, for advice. He said that even without rain that section was hard and he almost fell. It's over a quarter mile of sheer rock face and 2 more miles downward. It wasn't safe.
With heavy hearts Michelin and I stood there for a long time trying to decide what to do. And for a moment, Mother Nature tried to cheer us on. The clouds separated slightly and we saw a view... of the tower... not the mountains... but still!!
We cheered up a little and decided to go back to the last shelter, Long Branch, and try again in the morning.
At the shelter we were met by Yogi, who I hadn't seen in forever!! Two women, now known as Pancake and Popcorn, who were sisters thru-hiking together, and a couple of others. We made dinner with them as the sun went down and the chill set in. We settled into our sleeping bags soon after dinner.
I couldn't get warm. Michelin slid as close to me as possible. Still cold. Yogi lent me his closed foam pad and used Michelin's inflatable one. Michelin made the ultimate sacrifice for me. With the closed foam pad I was finally warm. Michelin was warm, but surely he was uncomfortable.
Day 18: Mile 105 | Trail Angel's House near Franklin, NC
We awoke at sunrise. Me groggy from my medication still, of course, and watched the snow fall outside the front of the shelter. The biting cold made it hard to leave my sleeping bag. We got up and Michelin made hot chocolate while I started packing. I went downstairs to the bottom of the shelter and drank the hot chocolate. We made a fun video for my mom and dad.
We decided that hiking over Albert in the snow was no safer than hiking over it in the rain. It just wasn't going to be possible and tomorrow's weather looked even worse. We resolved to go into town to pick up a package I was waiting on (Achilles compression sleeves and some freeze dried veggies) and then camp near Winding Stair Gap to avoid paying for a hotel/hostel.
We finished packing up and left by 8am. We hiked through the snow:
We made it back to Rock Gap just in time to take the $3 shuttle back into Franklin. We were both almost out of food so we took the shuttle to WalMart which was about half a mile from the Post Office. For some reason the store felt especially overwhelming on this day. We roamed around, me very anxious, longer than we really needed to. We finished our shopping and realized the shuttle wouldn't come around for another 20 minutes. We figured we could be at the post office in 20 minutes! So we put our gloves and jackets back on and went out to walk to the Post Office. We watched the shuttle pass us as we were almost to the parking lot. We were trudging. Our morale was low, we were cold, and we were hungry.
As I walked up to the Post Office doors someone came up to Michelin. A woman asking if he needed a ride. There was a man in her car, too. I felt safer knowing that she approached him (a 6' something tattooed all over unapproachable guy) and not me (the little girl). He told them we needed to get lunch and we couldn't afford to stay in town so we would probably go back to the trail. She told me to go in and get my package and continued talking to Michelin.
I came out a few moments later with my package and she helped me load up my pack and my groceries in the trunk of their Honda Civic. They drove us to the local Thai restaurant (one of their favorites) and told us they'd be back in an hour after their errands to pick us up. (Don't worry I took down their plate numbers... although we still didn't have their names...). We ate merrily and exactly an hour later they showed up to pick us up! We got in the car and the woman said, "We never caught your names! I'm Sandi and this is Donn!"
We introduced ourselves by our real names. They said, "We'd like to offer for you both to stay the night with us. If you don't mind sharing a bed..." we looked at each other wide eyed and nodded. "We'd love that!" We responded. Anything to stay out of the cold rain, we thought. On our way home they told us that the weather was supposed to get down to negative 2 on the trail that night and they were glad to have us in town.
They drove us back to their small farm just outside of Franklin. It was cute and perfect. By now it was about 3pm. They showed us to their guest room and we spread out our groceries to do our resupply. They went about their chores. Donn came in about an hour later and offered us showers before the sun came down. He explained to us that their shower is powered by solar so it has to be light out. We showered quickly and joined Sandi and Donn for dinner.
We are a quick dinner and Sandi told us she had choir practice that night. They asked if we'd like to go to town with Donn and grab a beer after a short trip to the outfitter (Outdoor 76). We, of course, said we'd love to. Michelin got a new hat. Donn ended up picking up some hikers at O76 who needed a ride and he told us he'd meet us at the Lazy Hiker later (Those hikers turned out to be some people I'll encounter again... look out!).
He later met us Lazy Hiker and we had an awesome conversation about philosophy and community. Shortly after Sandi met us at the Hiker too. We all shared a round and Sandi told us about her rehearsal and we all just chatted for a while. Eventually the Hiker was closing so we headed back to the house and headed to bed.
