| May 06, 2005 |
| Will just drop
me off at Beauty Spot and I'm walking south to Nolichucky River
where I came into yesterday. |
| I want to
describe to you the area up here; I'm on top of bald, it's a huge
big bald where they use to bring cattle and let them graze in the
summer. CCC has done some work and put a little nice fenced
area. I can see mountains as far as I can see 360 degrees all
the way around. From the top of the bald I can look over into
Erwin. Up here the wind is blowing and its very cold.
I've got short sleeve and a long sleeve shirt on, but my hands
are cold. There are also some berries bushes that are
blooming. There are 2 or 3 different kind of birds here and I
don't know exactly what they are, they are dark in color, some white
in their tail, and I think a little orange. |
| I'm still
running the ridge line between NC Wildlife Management area to my
left - going south - and Tenn., mostly I'll be in Tenn. today.
In the summer months this bald would be difficult to go through; it
grown up in briers and bushes. |
| Now leaving
the bald and going into a hard wood forest. Most of the hike
today will be down hill going back into Nolichucky River. It
very cold up here and none of the trees have any leaves on them yet. |
| You can tell
when you're going down the mountain because you come to these
horrible rocks in the trail. |
| Helen and
Hershel from NIN, thank you very much for your letter, I really
appreciated hearing from you. This bald is beautiful. If I
could roll it up and put it into my pocket and bring it to you
Hershel, I would, it's absolutely gorgeous. The trail is just
beautiful through here and you certainly would like to hike it with
me. |
| I do see
little yellow violets growing along the way from the trail coming up
from Georgia. It's interesting, I can follow the Spring
up north this year. I getting into some boulder out cropping
of metamorphic rock with likens of course and some time or another
they burned this little area off either on purpose or a lighting
strike in this area. |
| Some big huge
oak trees in this area, also some hemlocks and dogwood trees coming
out in bloom. I just about read to make my first gravel road
crossing, which is the road we came up on. During yesterday's
hike I are quite a few tea berries and I see some along the trail
now that's ripe and they also call that winter evergreen. |
| I'm standing
under a power line clearing over looking the community of Erwin, I
can also hear the whistle of the train engine as it comes up through
the valley. |
| The sun is
starting to shine now making me feel a lot warmer, also I'm down in
altitude now. This is an open woods, but I don't feel
any breeze. It's also a devastated area, a lot blow downs,
limbs, trees broken off, laying all over the place. Passage
really rooty through here, I think it's probably the laurels and the
rhododendrons roots. |
| I stayed with
Sundance Kid last night at Wills. He came off the trail
yesterday at the same time we did and so did Mama Bear and her cubs.
So they all jumped in the van and we took them into Erwin and Mama
Bear and her cubs off at the Holiday Inn, they were going to take a
zero day. Sundance just came back to Will's with us and we
dropped him of this morning at post office in Erwin and he was going
to take a zero day. He'll probable stay in Erwin tonight. |
| Just came
across the first asphalt crossing at the NC state line, this is the
same road that we us to come up to the bald. I am completely
on the Tenn. side of the trail now and this woods looks a lot
different. I think NC had a lot of controlled fire burns. |
| This look like it's
a very mature pine forest mixed with hard woods, very tall, very
straight, oaks, maples, striped maple and ground hemlocks. |
 Sandy-Simon if
your reading our trail journal, you certainly be very proud of your
grand dog, Simon. He is liked by all people, everybody know
him, he's very polite on the trail and any time somebody comes by,
they stop and pat him on the head and he remembers them. He's
always glad to see them at the shelters. It doesn't make any
difference how long its been in between times, he know them.
Everybody really likes him and brag about him. He does a
wonderful job on the trail, goes about 20 to 30 feet in front of me
and comes back and checks on me. |
| I'm just now
coming through one of these rocky slid areas where it's nothing ,
but rocks in the trail. Very difficult hiking, especially for
someone with a sore heel. I have to be very careful as to
where I place my left foot so that I don't twist or turn or step on
it to hard. It's a beautiful area covered with moss, liken,
you see blues and greens and gray colors. |
| I'm sitting in
a little camping resting my foot, getting a drink of water and
giving Simon a drink. I'm going on the side of the mountain at
Indian Gap through a Rhododendron tunnel with a very smooth path.
Uh-oh here comes on of those real rocky areas, thank heavens those 3
or 4 rocky areas were short lived, however I'm in real rooty area
right now. |
| The blue
berries a full of pink little blooms, that kind of hang down.
There's another little scub bush that I don't know what it is, it
look like blue berry blooms, it's kid of a tall spindly bush with
white blooms and hang down like blue berries. They look like
little bells. |
| The trail just
weaves in and out these big boulders, a lot like in Autumn, there
some liver wart, beautiful colors on those big stones, mostly grays,
not exactly lime stone. |
| Simon and I at
Curly Mountain shelter, going to take a lunch break and rest for a
little while. Then I have about 4 more miles to go to
Nolichucky River. Just had lunch with Crazy Horse and Praying
Mantis. |
| From the
shelter I'm hiking down a ravine canopy covered with
rhododendrons, beside a little creek that running down into the
ravine. I just came by big huge outcroppings, the top of this
rock that I just came under is probable 20 to 39 feet tall from
where I'm standing. I see some other outcrops along the trail,
but they don't go up that high. I'm definitely going down the
hill, there is nothing but rocks and some blue berries and a few
pine trees. I just saw a snake plant that was budding out and
some wild Irises. I'm nearing the bottom of the mountain that
I've been coming down. I've been hearing the water falls for a
long way, because I know that the ravine is very deep. There's
the water falls, there's about 3 or 4 of them together. Going
through a rocky area along the side of the creek, with really flat
like river rocks. It's one of those area I wouldn't want to
hike during the night, a creepy area, it's mostly rhododendron and
it's got this little bushy like shrub that grows right along the
path competing with the rhododendron and hangs out into the path.
There's also some type of bug that is floating around, really can't
tell what it is, but darts around and gets in your eyes or face. |
| I just came
across an interesting log bridge. There's actually two of
them, one came across an intermittent creek with just a little bit
of water in it and the other on came across this rushing creek.
The bridge is a sawed off tree about three quarters through and then
they jus let it fall on to the rocks on to the other side and that's
the bridge that goes across the creek, Then they just to a saw
or something and leveled the top of it for easy hiking. |
|
I'm still going down the valley and it's really flat. I
seemed to have broken out of the rhododendron forest and back into the pines and
oaks and shag bark hickories. There's even a few tall sycamore trees in this
area. I just passed beautiful cardinal flower growing along the side of
the bank, also just passed a Nolichucky hostel and camp ground where the
peddlers come in and spend the night before they take of in the rafts.
On the out cropping there'd bunch of cardinal flowers hanging on to the soil
on top of those rocks, they're beautiful when they are in clumps like that.
I'm up high enough that I can see the white caps on the Nolichucky River.
I just had to crawl up the face of a rock cliff which were like stairs right
here before I get into Nolichucky River to finish. This was probably the
hardest part of the whole trail. This really a steep little area through
here. |
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