- Mile 275.9-286.0 (10.1 mi.)
- Total ascent: 4541′; total descent: 2356′
Having camped between a bluff and a river last night, my first task this morning was to deconstruct the rock fortress we’d built around our bear cans. Because we’d resupplied yesterday, we also hung a bear bag, which came down with less effort than I thought it ought to have.
I made our vitamin-coffee breakfast drink in our new Platypreserve wine bag, some marketer’s rebrand of our old Platypus water bottle, which we replaced in Hot Springs because a seal had begun to leak. Rachel finished putting up the tent as I distributed snacks for the day and took a No. 2 as far from our site as I could, given the terrain.
We were off right around 8 p.m., with switchbacks first on the menu. We soon stopped so Rachel could do her business and, while she was off in the woods, were passed by a solo hiker with earbuds, the only person we’d see until just before getting to camp. Two tenths of a mile ahead, we stopped again to get water. Somebody had kindly put a pipe in the source, a small, moss-topped spring.
Our switchbacks continued for most of the morning, leveling off briefly before recommencing as a single line of steeper trail. Miniature irises, unfurling ferns, and some unassuming white flowers poked up around the trail, themselves surrounded by moss. Abundant rhododendron thickets would have provided shade for much of the day, had the sun been out. Old mining roads, on account of the former silver mine in the area, twisted in the woods beside us.
What had been mere humidity became increasingly dense fog as we climbed. The flowers and ferns disappeared, and then so did the rhododendron. Hemlock trees, both living and killed by pests, spread out above us.
After the lowland plants had disappeared, we came upon a fork in the trail, barely visible from ten feet on account of the fog. We had been planning to lunch at Rich Mountain Firetower, which was just up the hill, but we were worried about the weather. The blowing fog carried rain drops, which were growing larger and colder.
Because we hadn’t heard thunder or seen lightening, we headed toward the firetower. Again on account of the fog, we were almost upon it when we saw it, which itself was obscuring a cell phone tower. The steel tower, which was just a few flights of stairs tall, had been painted grey and any breakable materials removed.
Deciding not to press my luck in the swaying tower, I descended as quickly as I’d climbed it. At the base, Rachel had her pack on her back and pointed down the trail we’d come up; the wind and rain made hearing even yelled words difficult.
In a couple tenths of a mile, the firetower side trail rejoined the AT, and we resumed our descent. It was about 2 p.m., and we hadn’t yet eaten lunch. But because of the elevation, tree cover was sparse. No rhododendron thickets, which we had planned to eat under if the firetower wasn’t safe, were visible in the fog.
Finally, in another mile of downhill run-hiking, we found a large bush on a hillside. Better, an adjacent tree’s roots made a cramped bench.
Rachel got out the breakfast-lunch bear can from her pack. I held it dutifully as she arranged her for tortilla preparation. Because small packs of extra-large tortillas were all the Hot Springs Dollar General had, we each got only one, which we tore in half to avoid eating our peanut butter and pepperoni in the same burrito.
As we lunched, a group of three passed us. One, a large man in his 30s sporting a Tyvek rain skirt like mine, seemed jealous of our hard-found lunch spot.
We finished, crammed food back in our bear cans, and strapped down just as the rain picked back up. Rachel put on her rain coat, while I tried to tough it out, which lasted approximately a mile, when the trail topped an unbearably cold and windy ridge.
In the fog, just as the ridge evened out, appeared a shelter. With room for about five, the lean-to shelter was full with that many and then some. A man who was irritably jockeying for a spot at the front of the shelter told us there were more tent sites up the hill.
Rachel and I walked up and pitched our tent together, deciding on a wet but less rooty spot over a grassier one. Because we had just eaten, we didn’t bother to get the bear cans out in order to begin on dinner, as we normally would upon making camp.
We will have to hide the bear cans, but we may skip dinner if the weather doesn’t improve. Crawling into our sleeping bags before dark doesn’t sound like such a bad way to end the day.
