kevin hikes

After 21 days of hiking about 10 miles a day, I limped into Gatlinburg two days ago with some form of shin splints – did some conservative treatments and feel quite a bit better today so I plan to get back to it . I can’t quite describe Gatlinburg but I’ll let some of these photos do the talking.

  
  
  
  
  
A strange mix of natural beauty and very unnatural tourism.

Another very true but hard to believe story:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/local/smokies-park-struggling-to-clamp-down-on-hog-infestation-ep-409059522-358959981.html?d=mobile

I saw a small herd of them two days ago – apparently seeing them up close is rare – they root up everything and the make the place look like a bull dozer just came through. Amazing how things can get out of control so quickly. 

On a brighter note, high elevation wildflowers are in abundance bluets, spring beauty, and yellow violets

  
  
  
  
Gotta say the flowers seem to be faring better than the trees…

• Just passed over clingman’s dome today – highest point on the AT and third highest peak east of the Mississipi @ 6600 feet. It was wildly windy and rainy. There is an amazing observation tower that involves walking up a long spiral ramp, which I did. See the view I had.
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• Also of note is the fact that many majestic hemlock trees and Fraser fir trees have died in recent years in Georgia and NC as the result of an introduced insect pest. This has dramatically changed the nature of the forest by taking out large stands of conifers which provided shade and a “dark forest” environment.
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• Now many many large trees are dying and falling across the trail. See this huge root system of a Fraser fir tree at 6000 feet that succumbed and tipped over. I saw hundreds of these today. Now the forest is becoming increasingly deciduous with less shade (especially now in winter).
• Something very sad about the whole thing. Seems like the east coast gets more than its share of tree tragedies – chestnut, elm, hemlock, fir. At least one knowledgeable man I met felt that the real culprit was coal burning electric plants producing pollutants toxic to trees and the insects just finished the job on highly stressed trees. I think there is some hope that these coal plants are now burning cleaner. All for now…Junco

I met a young filmmaker named Lindsay yesterday. She wanted some footage of salamanders for a documentary she is doing about “women on the AT”. We checked out the stream by the shelter and I caught a few, which she filmed. I’m promised to be noted in the credits as “Salamander handler”

http://www.thruatdoc.com

ltgimages.com

Pretty limited cell service up here – when I was last in a town, I was looking at some books about the plants and animals here – there’s a whole “of the Smokies” series. I picked the bird book, but I couldn’t decide which of the seven other options to pick (way too heavy), so I picked one that is of particular interest to me – I’ll give you a hint – “Hellbender”

If you’ve ever seen the movie groundhog day, you’ll remember that Bill Murray gets to relive a day over and over again until he gets it right. Hiking up and down in the Appalachian mountains is kind of like that – every day you get to experience winter and spring – over and over – as you get above 4000 feet in elevation it looks like  dead of winter, then two hours later you drop down to 2000 feet and all these beautiful wildflowers are blooming – it’s amazing. I’m reacquainting myself with all the wonderful events of spring in the Appalachian mountains!!

I’ll try to upload some flower photos when I get better cell service. 

Happy Easter!!

Most of my days are hiking up and down 500-1000 foot “mountains”, occasionally crossing dirt roads and rarely a paved road. At the end of yesterday’s trip, we came across  a little trail magic. Here’s a photo of “I believe” and me with the Mountain  Dew and lawn chair rest spot she was offering tired hikers. I can’t tell you how nice that was.

  
 Today I descend to the Nantahala Outdoor Center for resupply – it’s a big whitewater recreation area. Then a long 5 mile climb 😎

Up to now, I’ve been a little hesitant to share my goals because I was worried I might blow up early in the trip. Today I reached goal #1 which was to stay on the AT for 2 weeks. My second goal will be to get deep into Virginia by early May so T-bird can pick me up and take me to a celebration of my parent’s 60th wedding anniversary in High Point, NC. Here’s a shout out to Fichard George Rand and Yvette Pauline Rajotte Rand – married May 6. 1956!!!

Well, there are lots of hikers on the trail this year. I probably interact with about 20 each day – many thru hiking to Maine, some section hiking 20 – 200 miles, some on spring break, and some out for a day hike. About 2/3 are college age, mostly guys. Today I got lost a bit on the trail and this young guy named “Footlong” set me straight. Almost all hikers are Caucasian. I’ve seen one Hispanic fellow, one African American guy , and one Asian guy – no native Americans. I read in recent weeks that REI and ATC were trying to reach out to other ethnic groups. There are a fair number of guys my age out here   – maybe 20% over 50.

I guess the only folks who can take 5-6 months off are transitioning from school or between jobs. Many have planned this event for over a year. Seems everyone out here has been thinking about doing this for a long time. One exception is this young fellow named “Price Tag” who I met yesterday. He hurriedly put his gear together for his trip and most of his stuff still had price tags on it…

So I know that I’ve been complaining recently about the weather, so I’m going to shift gears a bit. I rolled into Franklin today to resupply. Puffy said I needed a selfie and I wanted to show you that the weather had improved. While I was here, I was interviewed by a reporter from the weekly Macon county newspaper- look for me and 3 of my friends in the on line edition on Thursdy. Hitting the big time!!!  J