If a picture is worth a thousand words

Then I have to write a lot of words because it'll be a while before any pictures get uploaded. A few words can be spent on a couple notable spottings of fauna recently.

Firstly, I've seen quite a few deer now, there was a trio of deer that came by our tent city in the Smokies (a bevy?) and another that was on top of the mountain that I startled and it bounced off. Apart from the deer not a lot more mammals except for the smaller ones such as squirrels and mice.
Birdwise though I've come across a lot more species. Probably the most impressive sighting was of a Great Horned Owl during a misty wet day. It flew straight past me and initially I thought it was a Pheasant Coucal as it had such a large wingspan and similar colours but it nested on a tree in plain sight and rotated its head 120 degrees so that I could see its distinctive owl features.
Then there are the Grouse (maybe the Ruffed Grouse) which I haven't seen but have a distinctive mating call. It is a well paced almost vibrating bass noise that I kept wondering about every time I would hear it. Various explanations to the noise included a moonshine brewery backfiring, a diesel generator starting up and a hydro-electric dam turbine until someone said 'Oh thats just a Grouse"... try to describe that with a picture :/.
Then there was a sighting of a bald eagle here at the hostel this morning which unfortunately I missed by seconds although I did see a heron flying over the river. I also had a bit of an altercation with some geese that were along the bikepath into Erwin. There was goslings (baby geese) sitting on the path maybe enjoying the warmth and they were hesitant to move off the path so one of the parent geese reared up and started hissing at me whilst the other parent correld the goslings slowly back into the water.
There have been a lot of other little birds but I have no idea what they are and I'm still hanging out for my first sighting of a woodpecker because I hear them all the time but the noise echos through the hills so much that it's really hard to pinpoint an exact location.

As for news on the trail... I may have said this already but the trail works as a grapevine. It isn't a homogeneous progression of people from South to North. People take days off (zero days), they slackpack certain areas (get a shuttle from a hostel and then walk back into town with a daypack on), they skip sections etc.. and of course people love to gossip so a good story moves quickly up and down the trail. The latest story we heard was about 'Lazy Susan' who we'd met at Fontana Dam and had renamed 'Dexter' as there was something not quite right about him. Apparantly as the story goes he got drunk somehow (he's only 18 so underage in the states) and made threats to a girl which were obviously scary enough because she called the police onto him and they picked him up at gunpoint.

That'll have to do for now because I'm about to head off but I will probably have a lot of time on my hands soon as I'm meeting a friend in Damascus on the 12th so I might take a few days off as I'm way ahead of schedule for that one and do a big writeup of the topics that are floating around in my head.

Til then.. happy trails

Morel Massacre

Morchella, the true morels, is a genus of edible mushrooms closely related to anatomically simpler cup fungi (thanks wikipedia).

That information is about is useful as the spotter information I received from my fellow hikers.. "It looks like a thumb", "It grows near some other plant", "It could be hidden under leaf litter so look under that".

John and Dallas had spotted a potentially favourable habitat for this edible mushroom so sticks in hand we were digging underneath the leaf litter for about half an hour looking for something that I didn't have the faintest idea of what it looked like.
It probably didn't help that the 'favourable area' was the side of a mountain... a big one or that the bugs were out in force and biting.
We gave up on that area but within 10 minutes there was another more favourable one so out came the sticks again.
In the end I gave up and went on hiking and obviously I was the unlucky charm because as soon as I had left they found a batch.

Later that night the morels were lined up on the log at the campsite. The boys weren't too sure what to do with them as they weren't too impressed with the colour and the general consensus was that the snow a few days ago had frosted them.
All thoughts on the matter however were moot as I, water bottles in hand, water collecting on my mind and big foot the culprit managed to wipe out half the morels in one step.

In some way I might have helped morel hunters in the future by spreading the seeds to an easily discoverable spot but I still fill guilty for my part in the Morel Massacre.

If a tree falls near a camp

Does anyone hear it?
Yes.. yes they do!
Greetings all from Erwin Tennessee, a town of around 5,000 people (Katherine size) which is about where the similarities end as I don't know if Katherine has ever publicly executed an elephant.

I will get around to writing up an entry about the towns I visit and my observations of the brief snapshot I have had of them but that isn't going to happen tonight as it's almost 11pm, it's been a long day and I have a couple of other stories to cover with my last 4 days of hiking.

Those last few days have been almost a cross section of the trail so far, rain, sun, pasta packs and probably the best summit view I've seen (on top of Big Bald mountain).
We also had an interesting opening to the day on the first day out of Hot Springs. We were just starting to stir out of camp when we heard thunder. That was a general sign to get back into tents as no-one really wants to start the day with a wet pack. The thunder was quickly followed by a fierce localised lightning storm which managed to blow down a sizable tree about 30 metres from the camp.
At the time it really wasn't that distinguishable a sound as there was howling winds but there was a loud whoosh and the sound of cracking timber.
After the storm had passed we inspected the tree and took photos of us standing on it making sure we got the tents in the background, and I can say for sure over the next few days I was inspecting the fallen down trees and potential campsites with renewed zeal.
Whether or not it was my new interest in the woody carcasses, there definitely seemed to be a lot of them in the surrounding area which made me wonder whether it was a design fault in the local flora. I mean I know that the woodpeckers would weaken them but the local firs and pines grow very tall and thin which makes them very susceptible to blowing winds. I guess they can grow that tall and thin due to the good soil, rainfall and temperate weather. The eucalypts back home however have no chance to grow that tall due to the poor soil and extreme climate... another victory for the tropics!
We may kill you with poisonous snakes, crocs, dropbears and a myriad of other bitey things but at least our trees are safe.

Aussie Aussie Aussie, oy oy oy

Trail Food Syndrome (TFS)

Do you read the back of packages and get excited when you see a high fat content?

Have you ever tried to work out the percentage of calories per ounce? (Bonus points if you can then convert it into grams)

Whilst shopping do you look at a box and wonder how small you can compress it once you get the food out of the box?

If the cooking instructions is anything more complex than ‘add water’ do you think to yourself “useless”

Are you convinced that ‘Iced Frosting’ will make a good lunch as it’s over half the calorie RDI in one tub?

If you answered yes to 2 or more of those questions then you have ‘Trail food syndrome’. The RDI (regular daily intake) for an average adult is around 2000 calories, this they will burn off over the course of the day going about their business. Most people will fill the RDI easily with a couple of good meals, some snacks and a few drinks. On the trail however every extra kilo you carry makes your work harder. The more you carry, the slower you go, the greater your exertion conversely the more food you need.. A kind of catch 22.

The average hiker is burning a lot more than 2000 calories a day and as weight is at a premium shopping becomes an exercise in not “what will taste good?” rather a more prosaic mindset of “how am I going to get the calories?”
Some people don’t mind carrying heavy packs and going slow. I’ve met people walking who carry tubs of salt/sugar, fresh produce, meat etc.. They have big packs.. it looks kind of painful.
Me I sort of have a standard menu when I’m on the trail..

Breakfast – 2-3 little oat satchets with dried fruit, generally cold but sometimes hot if I brew up a cuppa as well

Smoko – muesli bar(s)

Lunch – Dry biscuits and vegemite (almost out.. it’s going to be a sad day when that happens), chocolate bar

Arvo snack – more muesli/chocolate bars.. sometimes jerky

Dinner – Pasta pack & tuna pack, or double pasta/rice packs. If it’s the first night out of town then maybe something a bit special (heavy).

It’s a pretty grim menu, it’s all processed which some of my friends back home will note with disdain but trust me it tastes really good when you’re hungry. MmmMmm.

The menu I’ve described still doesn’t cover your RDI so I’ve had to balance this by making a pig of myself whenever I go into town.. something I’m about to do right now… No tuna packs for dinner tonight…. yeeha

The Smokies strike back!

Ok, back from a dip in the springs…

Nothing sexier than 6 grown men with blistered feet wearing hiking shorts crammed into a hot tub. Despite that it was great to soak in the mineral waters and chew the fat and I feel a lot more relaxed.

Ok so where I left off last post I was soaked but drying ok, running a little short on food as I had underestimated a little but still nothing too bad, I still had 2 power bars, 2 ‘granola’ (museli) bars, 2 packets of pasta and a packet of tuna. The rain kept going all night and into the morning and I wasn’t prepared to take a ‘zero day’ (no mile day) as we planned to take one at Hot Springs and I didn’t really have enough food to do that. Instead I packed as much of my gear that I could whilst into the tent, put on my wet hiking clothes (and boots.. squelch) then tore down the tent and shoved it into the backpack.

Day 6 walking, whilst technically not in the Smokies anymore I still group it together as I regard going into town as the start/end point of each ‘session’. Day 6 was wet, soaking, continual dripping wet. Day 6 was cold, freezing, bitterly cold. Day 6 added a new dimension to the walk, some unvegetated summits which were more like the rolling moors in scotland with icy cold wind blasting unhindered by any trees.

I hiked onward, there was no point stopping anywhere as there wasn’t any shelter and I wanted to catch up to John and Dallas (who were actually behind me. I hiked for 10 miles until I came to a shelter frozen, numb and cold. I’d eaten one of the pasta packs for breakfast and had planned to only have 1 power bar for lunch but the cold had leeched everything out of me so I ended up putting on warm clothes and eating everything I had except the tuna and pasta pack (for dinner) and 1 muesli bar (for breakfast). After lunch I was feeling a bit more human and luckily there were no more windswept summits ahead so I pushed on. As I came across other crazy hikers I’d ask them if they’d seen the boys and I would get vague responses which convinced me that they were still ahead. Then the temperature started to drop and when I got to the next shelter the hikers there told me that it was forecast for 20 degrees farenheit. Now I knew that was going to be cold, but for some reason I thought 0 degrees farenheit = 0 degrees celcius, so I thought well at least it wont be freezing. However as I’m now aware 32 degrees farenheit = 0 degrees celcius and believe me it makes a difference. Blissfully unaware I found a nice campsite about 10 miles out of Hot Springs, at altitude and set up my wet camp, unfortunately a stick had ripped my garbage bag and the bottom of my backpack had got wet which meant the end of my sleeping bag had got soaked. As I was cooking dinner Dallas came into camp, he’d been chasing me all day and even run up Bluff Mountain in order to catch up. There wasn’t much time for civilties though as it was getting really cold and we had to try and warm up for the night ahead. It was a miserable night for me.. I couldn’t stretch out my legs or else my feet would get wet and I only had the bare minimum clothes on as everything else was soaked. Still I managed to sleep eventually and woke up to find the tent covered in snow and everything that had been wet frozen.

Try to picture this, me with numb hands trying to take down my tent (of which the fly is held by clasps which had frozen) every 10 seconds or so blowing onto my hands to try and get them to work. I couldn’t for the life of me get the poles out as they are tensioned into slots but luckily Dallas is from cold country and did it for me. He also had to tie my shoelaces as I couldn’t grip them either lol.

Finally the nightmare of breaking camp was over and we ran down Bluff mountain (2-3 miles) by which time my feet began to get feeling. Dallas said it was just a bit of sleet but I’m not calling my 2^nd time in snow sleet and I’m also calling the small specks of falling snow that morning a blizzard.

I’ll definitely give the points to the Smokies for that morning as I felt like a big baby having to ask to get my shoelaces tied. Still at least I feel like I’ve earnt this zero day today, it’s a hard life when you get to have a holiday inside a holiday

And no… there’s no ‘Return of the Smokies’ planned

Smokey Wars

Well..

I fell for the old trap of commenting in my last post how good the weather had been and set myself up for a fall, and what a fall it was...

In my last update I was on the verge of the Smokey mountains, a national park which is loved by the locals for its soaring peaks (the highest on the trail at 6643 feet), pristine nature and of course the bears.

The pristine nature is guarded on the trail by enforced camping at the shelters which are of a much larger size than their preceding kind, so I guess I should talk a little about them. Shelters are small building usually made of wood, sometimes stone with three walls and a flat wooden base allowing people to camp underneath without the need for a tent. Generally they are 5 to 10 miles apart and can fit between 5 to 12 people underneath depending on the size of the shelter. They are usually near a water source (spring or creek) and have a privy (bush toilet) on the opposite side to the water.

Sometimes they are on the trail itself but just as often they are a short walk off the trail (or in one case 1.2 miles off the trail as in the rarely visited Whitely Gap Shelter)

Up until the Smokey mountains I hadn't even visited any of the shelters on the trail because there are plenty of campsites where those of a solitary bias (ie me) can camp in peace and usually at a much more scenic location. That and the weather had been great.

In the Smokies however, you have to stay at the shelters and are only allowed to camp if the shelter is full. The shelters at the Smokies are much bigger given the increased traffic in them and had a double storey wooden platform so that up to 14 people can stay in them. They include such luxuries as extended roof awnings, stone construction, wooden benches/seats and even indoor fireplaces.

All of these luxuries however dont really compensate for the loud snorer that invariably picks the sleeping spot with the greatest acoustics and falls asleep before anyone else.

Despite the regulations, I only have only had to sleep in a shelter for one night so far (Silers Bald Shelter) as the rest of the nights the shelters were full due to the abundance of thru and section hikers so I happily pitched my tent which gives me my happy little space.

The walking through the Smokies... The night before at Fontana Dam a group of us hikers hitched a ride (6 hikers and 1 dog into the back of a pickup truck) into the local servo which also doubled as the bar. We had a few drinks, played some pool and then headed back to the shelter (the Fontana “Hilton”). I was primed for the Smokies albiet camera less because I am a hopeless luddite, I had laundered, swum in the dam, showered, resupplied, updated blog, filled in my permit form and on a mission to get to Hot Springs. The start of the walk was all uphill which I tackled with gusto and soon caught up with James (Gandalf) and Dallas (Bush Goggles) who had started a little earlier. I've ended walking with them and John (Lady Slipper) through the whole Smokies. Well walking together is a bit of a misnomer as sometimes we do but generally we walk at our own pace and meet up in town or at a campsite.

The first day the weather was grey but the rain held until the afternoon which was just before I got to a shelter. As the next shelter was 7 miles away that was it for the day so I set up my tent as the shelter was full (well technically it wasn't but I was sure it was going to fill :)). The rain went through the night and continued through the morning so I decided to read my kindle instead of braving the elements like the rest of the hikers. Some may call it 'soft', I prefer 'safely negotiating hazardous environments' which I did until 11 am. By then the rain had stopped so I packed and walked to the next shelter where as I arrived the rain started again so out came the kindle and I waited for another hour until it stopped. Once it had I made a bit of a dash to the next shelter and only got a little caught out by the rain so by the end of the day I was quietly satisfied that I had 'dodged' the weather. For the Smokies however that was only round one.

Round two was day 5 in the Smokies which came after some great scenic walking through clingmans dome, a visit to Gatlinburg (which I'll go into some more detail later) and some awesome ridgewalking (great views on either side) on day 4.

Day 5 was at the northern boundary of the Smokies and pretty much involved the descent out. We'd (James, Dallas and I) had camped just outside Tri-corner knob shelter in a bit of a tent city as the shelter was full. We had just passed the 10% mark of the AT trail and were planning to push hard that day so that we could get out of the national park and go back to camping away from the shelters. John caught up with us early in the morning and seeing as he and Dallas are the fastest walkers they took off together. Then the rain came and there was no avoiding it. Walking downhill in the rain on a hiking trail is pretty much like walking down a steep creekbed. You're trying to avoid walking in the puddles as much as possible as you want to keep your feet dry but seeing as the kickers on my boots have separated from the soles a little due to all the times I've kicked stomes or tripped on roots it was kind of a lost cause.

Still I plodded on, trying vainly (both in the hopeless sense and the ego one) to catch the boys ahead of me. I found some shelter at an overpass after I had finished my descent and I managed to ring my socks dry and pushed on hoping to find the boys camping nearby.

Unfortunately for me, I walked past their campsite as I was climbing Snowbird Mountain and so I kept pushing on, soaked into the cold rain cursing the boys for their indifference to the weather. By 6.30 odd, I'd had enough so I warmed my hands enough to pitch my tent and set up a soggy camp. Luckily my 50 cent black garbage bag (instead of a $50 bag cover) had kept my bag dry so my gear was dry and I was in pretty good spirits that I'd catch them up tomorrow.

TBC.. got to go meet up with the boys to go for a dip in the springs

Trail Names.. the list

Like the camp sites I thought I might keep a list of the trail names I come across.. lest we forget

Walkabout...    obviously the coolest one out there
Rock Scar...    falling onto rocks is not fun
Ten Gallon...    after a hat, i think
Sketch...          rodeo rider, artist, over 100 broken bones, will I see him past the smokies?
Yogi and Boo boo...  hiker couple, bear lovers
Bucket list...     doesnt need too much explaining
Day Glow...     named after his fluorescent shirt
White Wolf...   didn't ask, but he has ear spacers so I'm guessing it's a new age thing
Lightning & Lady bug... I remembered the second part. Hit by lightning 6 times didn't stop him going outside.. Lady is his partners.
Miguel...         real name Michael with a Porto Ricean wife
Croc...           I didn't actually meet him, just heard about him
April and Fool...   They started the walk on the 1st
Simple See...   Apparantly he was Normal See because he is a straight talker and then someone found out his surname was Simple so they named him Simple See. I don't get what the See means
Scatter...   Great for topics, low on continuency
Old Skool...   For her backpack
Smores (Gandalf)... James - Named after a marshmallow snack, I renamed him Gandalf for his awesome walking stick
Bush Goggles... Dallas - Had another trail name that I cant remember which was a song he would whistle, I renamed him Bush Goggles seeing as soon as hit town no woman was safe :)
Lady Slipper... John - Named after the state flower of Minnesota but could also refer to the cute girl that walked past us and he hasn't been able to catch since
Weelow... Named after a toy she carries
Snickers... Pretty self explanatory
Ivy... Not too sure, could have been because of the poison ivy on the trail
Yeti... and her dog Jada
Mr Incredible and Elastic girl
Apollo... red hair again
Ambassador... slow southern drawl makes for the ambassador way
Cackles... she laughes at anything
Pops...   He's of the older generation
Sheila...  Suzannes trail name, 'chick' in ocker