BMT/AT Figure 8 Day 45: Final Resupply and a Rant
Day 45, Friday, October 16, 2020
Tray Mountain Shelter (Mile 2134.7) to Unicoi Gap (Mile 486.6)
Mile 486.6
Miles Hiked: 5.8
Not much of a view for my morning coffee, but the sky lit up in neon colors just before I started my climb up to the top of Tray Mountain.
I almost didn’t make it to the top because I turned left out of the shelter instead of right and started the day’s hike by marching off in the wrong direction. Oops.
EXACTLY THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF GNARL
The climb up was a refreshing mix of rockiness and slippery leaves and rough terrain that make hiking fun and not the super-highway that so many miles of the AT have become, at least in the south.
Is it too much to ask the trail fairies from the Carolina Mountain Club to ease off on their endless hours of “improvements?” Honestly, they’ve “improved” the challenge right out of an activity that isn’t supposed to be easy.
Stop it, CMC!
Stick with clearing blow downs and stop building sidewalks.
Sidewalks are for cities. Not wilderness areas.
(And don’t even get me started on weed-whacking during Junco nesting season. Sheesh…the ignorance).
Ralph met me with coffee and donuts at Unicoi Gap. We drove into Hiawassee and spent the day next to the lake at a little-used picnic area that looked like it had been built back in the day by the CCC. I dried my stuff in the sun and we made up stories about the carpoolers who’d trickled in at the end of the day to pick up their rag-tag bunch of shit boxes.
I washed my hair in the tiny sink in the van and the world of possibilities for living in a van expanded.
