Roan Mountain

We're in Roan Mountain, Tennessee, which is a series of bald mountains, very high altitude 5000-6000 feet, very high altitude for the Appalachians. Views from everywhere span many mountain ranges until the most distant an highest are difficult to distinguish between cloud and earth. And to add to the spectacular beauty, the mountains are full of rhododendron and wild flame azalea, both in full and radiant bloom. It's much like a moor, with low, scrubby brush, shimmering grasses, lichen-covered massive outcropping of rock and 12 ft high rhodos dotted about randomly like grazing bison.

I came here as a child with my grandfather who was a tireless naturalist and tourguide for me. I was very young but it must have been the same time of year because the rhodos were in mad blossom and I reportedly ran about in wild delight to his great pleasure. I've never been back until now, and we drove 7 hours to get here. We're in our tent on the ridge beyond Jane Bald and the wind is madly whipping the tent fly. We barely found a campsite in time, off the trail, a flat area with some privacy. It was almost dark.

Joe lit the stove and I made hot tea for us as the mist closed in around us. We are tired and glad to have cozy sleeping bags and air mattresses. I think we'll sleep well. For dinner we had carrots and hard boiled eggs (double yolk, from a South Boston farmer). It's all about the weight when you backpack, so we'll eat the heavy carrots and oranges early on as well as the eggs, which won't last. Not like it's hot, though. I expect it's in the 40's with the damp wind making it even colder. In the night I took a bandanna out of my pack and tied with around my head because my ears were really cold.

We're still sort of clean and relatively uninjured and not yet sore. There's no way to really train for camping but we aim to take it slowly and enjoy the world, off the grid. I work so hard that this kind of spectacular isolation is soul feeding and restorative. I also love the complete sense of self sufficiency.

The fly is whipping on all sides of the tent with a wild crunching. It's almost like the surf. I hope I wake up to see the sunrise. Doubtful.

A full day of hiking

We woke up with such a heavy dew that it penetrated the tent fly - or maybe the dew condensed inside? At any rate, drops of water were falling on us. Chilly. It was a magnificent morning.

After packing up we we ascended Grassy Ridge hiking through a 15' tunnel of vibrant rhododendron on a deeply rutted path. The ground is so full of organic matter that the trails wear down with use. Water furthers the process. Grassy Ridge's meadows are sparkling with wildflowers in the grass. After about two hours we returned to the AT and descended through a forest for several miles. At the Stan Murray Shelter we met a couple, El and Bill, who are from Banner Elk, where my great Aunt Alla lived. I spent many summers there with her and in her lovely home is where she taught me to weave. El said that some of the people I knew when I was a child are still in Banner Elk! How crazy to connect in a gap so far from civilization!

El and Bill are retired and hike 3-4 times a week! But we were surprised by the number of single hikers we encountered. I doubt there is a constituency at the city jail who hike. I was thinking about that assuming that without summer camp or college near mountains, exposure and access would be limited. Urban kids have minimal opportunity to discover and come to love the natural world. I know know a woman who takes less advantaged children camping - a lot. What a lot of trouble, organizing the food, the water purifier tablets, the route and gear. Such a gift to share with these girls.

The woods are full of a brave, industrious little bird with a grey and white striped tail and a white beak - a junko. I've also heard owls and hawks and seen many birds swoop through the woods and meadows.

We are camping tonight on Little Hump mountain in the middle of a cluster of boulders. All around is the grass bald with occasional trees only. We are so tired we won't even see the sunset tonight. Our packs are too heavy. And the first full day is always the hardest.

And the next day it rained

The boulder around us are in a circle like giant beasts or Henry Moore sculptures. The morning was foggy at first but the rapidly tracking mist revealed much of the bald, including the meandering path we had taken through the grass. I sat and looked at that path, traveling up the green meadow to the horizon and on into the woods. North Carolina has a richer depth of mountain than Virginia. Range after range rise on all sides from this bald mountain vantage. We have a small one burner hiker's stove and one of the weight indulgences I bring is an espresso pot - the European metal kind with the reservoir on the bottom, grounds in the middle and a cavity for the coffee on top. It is black with use at many campsites. Just as we had finished our coffee and oatmeal, it began to rain, so we retreated to the tent for gin rummy. Joe is a masterful player, but I was winning.

We heard two couples pass by our site and talked about leaving the tent with everything in place (and dry) and just hiking. We were very far from any road so tent thieves would be scarce. I started out alone in the rain but came back for Joe because it was too beautiful to miss. At this altitude the weather moves rapidly. We descended into woods with the path a torrent of water and mud and stones. It was quite steep. Then suddenly, the rapture: Big Hump meadow, rising up. Another bald full of waving grasses and wildflowers with an undulating path to the false summit. We went through a stile, saw evidence of cattle but no animals, although we had heard there are longhorn cattle as well as horses grazing there. It was transcendent.

The day before, schlepping up a seemingly endless rise, we encountered a solitary man who gave us encouragement. He said he had hiked this trail 7-8 times and it was his favorite. He said the first time he emerged from the the woods, "it was a rapture, seeing Little Hump and Big Hump was even more splendid." His tangy North Carolina accent made his passion for this trail even more poignant. From Roan to the Humps are said to be the most beautiful stretch of the AT.

That evening we hiked to an old red barn, an AT shelter with a capacity for 20. When we arrived a young woman was asleep in her sleeping bag at 6AM! I judged her to be a through hiker because her socks and boots were thick with mud but carefully laid out on the platform in case drying might happen (doubtful). I had noticed at another shelter a curious handmade contraption handing from the ceiling - a rope with the bottom of a plastic bottle over the first knot (to keep rodents from climbing down) and a second knot containing a smooth thick stick about 5" long. Finally, I saw these mysterious devices in use: to hold a wet jacket and another to hold a pack. The shelters are notorious for mice, so hanging food and other items makes sense.

The barn had two open sleeping platforms facing the mountains with a picnic table and a fire ring. Inside, since there were stairs to the loft I went up to see the vast room with no windows but many slits of light through the ancient diagonal plank walls. The floorboards were irregular widths but all quite wide, because the barn was ancient. There was just enough debris upstairs to make the loft seem unappealing despite the broom attached to the wall beside a sign, "This shelter maintained by volunteers."

Back at the picnic table we consulted the map and the hiker turned over and sat up - a young man, and a through hiker.

He said he typically hikes 20 or so miles a day with his 26 pound pack and one liter of water. We left him rolling a cigarette, talking to a group of 7 boys from a nearby camp. It would have been a noisy night in that barn!

A sensory memory

Hiking up Big Hump with mists traveling over the ranges hanging heavy in the low areas. The trail is narrow, barely a footstep wide and bare earth with some rocks in places. It meanders up the massive bald a gentle, very much human-formed path up though the expansive mountainside. Long, fine grass covers the meadows punctuated with yellow and tiny blue and white wildflowers. The grass weeps over both sides of the trail, heavy with water. Passing though brushes my bare calves with cool soft water as if being washed by feathers.

An obvious priority

We have changed our philosophy about hiking, and for the better. As usual, I had charted an ambitious course for us with a linear progression. In this part of Tennessee, vandalism of cars left by AT hikers is sadly common so parking security is important as well as is ferrying back to the beginning part of the hike.

My plan was from Carver's Gap at Roan Mountain to Dennis Cove - about 40 miles. Since we don't backpack frequently enough (why? why?) we bring too much and have heavy packs - probably over 40 pounds. The weight and our ages make for slow going. Our first full day we went only about 8 miles with many ascents and descents and were whipped. I had though we could average 10 miles a day. But it's about the journey, Kent. For once it's not about accomplishment. Also my dream was to return to Roan Mountain in June as a touchstone to a fond and happy memory.

Since we passed through Roan on the first day beginning our hike at 7 PM we were intent on finding a campsite as opposed to savoring the beauty. So we are going to backtrack now and move at a pace we can enjoy. We will call Laurel Folk Lodge where we park the car (for $1 a day) to request a pick up on Wednesday or Thursday. I'm looking forward to going back and possibly leaving our gear in the camp to hike unencumbered.

We found a quiet spot deep in the woods full of sweet smelling white flowers that look like giant Queen Anne's Lace. We pitched the tent right beside a tree with a low hanging limb. That limb became a wonderful rack for damp bandannas and my favorite small votive camp candle. As I began the soup for the evening, I enjoyed some nips of my Amontillado and felt raindrops. We pulled the stove under the "vestibule" and continued to cook, snug in our tent.

The night was quiet and we had no animals which is good because we kept the food in the tent that night.

Camping on a bald

After a lovely day of hiking and chatting with seeming herds of young men (campers mostly) all head to the old red barn, we returned to our favorite campsite overlooking Jane Bald. I set up the tent and Joe put together the chairs which use our air mattresses for support. We sat and watched the clouds and occasional tiny hikers thread their way along the meandering patch over Jane Bald through the rhododendron and the wild flame azaleas. Joe puffed on a cigar. It was bliss. We sat on a rock outcropping and I had consolidated the coffee pot and cups, the food bag and the trash bag as well as the stove into a kitchen area. The massive slab of rock was in different levels, creating footrests and cook top and there was a nifty and protected fire pit, blackened with use.

We decided to gather wood, not a simple task on a bald, but we collected a nice assortment of sticks and twigs. After about 25 matches (and with only about 15 left) we gave up and left the firewood for campers with better matches and less wind. It was a beautiful campsite, but very exposed.

I cut up some carrots and put them in a pot to cook and then added water and the package of chicken soup. It was about halfway cooked when we felt giant splats of rain. What a surprise - we had watched the weather from a 360 degree vantage and were pleased to seem storm clouds pass 45 minutes ago and hadn't looked up since. Joe wasn't waterproof, so he sprinted to the tent. I grabbed the food bag and followed. But I didn't turn off the soup. I assumed the rain would blow over but we sat in the tent, watching the sides suck and heave under a deluge and high winds.

So now we're in the tent, worrying about the liquid gas from the stove continuing to feed to the burner even though the flame is undoubtedly out. I wait until the lightening is more than 10 miles away and dash out to turn if off. I leave the rain soaked soup behind.
Back in the tent we adjust, move the wet clothes to one end and play some gin rummy with the head lamp.

Morning came with no reduction in the torrent. Can you see the rain and wind straining the tent in the picture? No strain on Joe! We broke camp in sheeting rain, packing out our gear and several additional pounds of water. My boots were full of water in the morning, but they had been wet for days, anyway. Incredibly, even in the dense fog and unrelenting rain, we encountered enthusiastic hiking groups with ponchos and sticks asking us if we had spotted the elusive Gray's Lily.

Down at the parking lot it struck home that we were 40 miles from our car. And in spite of the AT book claim there was no cell signal on the ridge top or even at the parking lot. I left Joe with our packs and took his cell phone up the hill toward the ranger station. In about 1/4 mile I got a signal and began to call for ferry help. Nothing but voice mail or busy signals. I left messages and left the pocket of cell phone reception to return to Joe. Suddenly I heard a racket behind me and saw an odd character. About 70, the man had on gaucho pants a cammo raincoat and work a necklace of dog tags, key s and a flash drive. Around his waist was a belt that jangled with dozens of bells -"my bear bells" he said. Lou was his name, or his trail name The Joker. A part of a local hiking club, Lou was certain that one of their members could take us to Hampton, Tennessee. So we waited and talked with many others around - other hiking clubs, including the Old Farts Hiking Club. Funny guys.

I went down to another part of the lot and began talking with a man about a hawk-like bird we had seen the day before - solid black like a crow, but bigger. He replied, "that's a raven; you don't see crows above 4,000 feet." He immediately offered to ferry us to Hampton, most generous since he lived in North Carolina.

So off we went in his Honda Element. Chuck is a trauma nurse who moved to the area for the cool elevation and the hiking. We had a delightful conversation and 30 minutes later he dropped us off at the McDonald's just as the rain resumed. with our remaining $4 we bought two cups of senior coffee and an order of large fries. Then we called Laurel Fork for a ride.

Re-entering civilization

Bradley is the owner of Laurel Fork Lodge a hybrid of a lodging/conference center/hostel alongside the rushing Laurel Fork River and beside the Dennis Cove section of the AT. He came for us in 45 minutes, incorporating a trip to town for supplies. His hostel is set up to provide excellent support to hikers, including a washer/dryer, frozen pizzas, and ice cream as well as a store with plenty of necessary supplies such as energy bars, band aids and Lipton instant soups. We took showers for $2 each and paid the $1 a day for parking our car. We put on our only remaining clean and dry clothes and took off for Spruce Pine.

We had a spectacularly vast mountain dinner at the Mountain View Restaurant on 221. Joe had hamburger steak with peppers, onions, gravy with green beans and mashed potatoes. I had fried chicken livers with corn and mashed potatoes AND chocolate coconut lava cake for $5.99. We feasted. Our waitress had the most incredible NC accent and I was mesmerized by how her words drawled out of her straight, smooth teeth. We slept blissfully in a real bed at Little Switzerland after checking in with no luggage and feeling delightfully free. The sun is setting on Little Switzerland's time as a Blue Ridge Parkway resort. It's still lovely but they have forgotten to pay attention to details like good food and new bedding. The flower beds are nice, however.

The next day was full of car-enabled exploration of NC's mountain treasures, including the rock and mineral museum, Penland School of Crafts, the Eceloa Lodge, Linville Falls and Blowing Rock. We walked into a bakery in Blowing Rock for some breakfast treats for Sloan and a total stranger woman came up to us and said, "Get this cranberry shortbread - it's better than sex." It was buttery and teeth achingly sweet and Joe loved it. But we aren't sure about her claim.

In Charlotte we slept happily in Sloan's bed that night and feasted on what Bon Appetit rates and the #1 fried chicken in the US from Prices Chicken Coop in Charlotte. We spent two nights with my stepmother Margie sharing pool time, beer and meals with Sloan and McKendree. Phoebe explored Margie's entire lakeside peninsula and even found a duck nesting on on 8 warm brown eggs.

We're driving home now with a planned stop in Lexington NC at John Wayne's BBQ which we hope will arrive at before the Sunday Father's Day rush.