Devil Take The Hindmost – The Trek

Though we stopped in the shelter last night to hide from potential rain, nothing hit last night. Zilch, nada. Oh well. We all took slow mornings out of the shelter, except for Anne, who was catching a friend from Asheville at the NOC!

Michaela and I hiked together for a while. The rest of the descent into the NOC was just some simple hiking, nothing major. But wow! Seeing such major civilization directly on the trail was a new experience. Not one we’ll get again until Hot Springs.

Inside, we ran into Cheese Curd again! She’d spent a night in the bunks at the NOC, and after such a hard day, I couldn’t blame her. Our original itinerary actually had us bunking up for the night at the NOC, but due to the weather forecasted for tomorrow, we switched around some hostel plans.

Anne had us meet her friend Buffy! She’s a paddler, and so was extremely familiar with the NOC. Anne also needed new shoes, Michaela and Danielle needed to print their Smokies pass, and I sent my first box home. A beanie I never used due to having hoods, an extra buff I was carrying around, and the Nemo Fillo. Turns out the Sea to Summit afforded me just about the same quality of sleep in a much lighter package. All in all, the box ended up being a pound! That’s a pound off my back.

Here we also ran into Wrong Way again! He was planning on taking a zero, his pack weight’s been bothering him tons, and his neck was in a bit of pain. Still, he also let us know that the restaurant was open! That was a surprise, since FarOut didn’t have the hours listed as open today. But hey, I won’t complain about a free meal.

I ended up ordering an omelette, and nibbling off pieces of other people’s meals — a bit of toast here, a few home fries there. I was muttering some show tunes to myself during the meal, and Cheese Curd asked “why’re you muttering Love Never Dies?” For those not in the know, Love Never Dies was an extremely unfavourably rated and obscure sequel to the Phantom of the Opera, and I just never expected… anyone to recognize it. Apparently, she also was a theater kid in a past life though. The more the merrier!

Hiner Hunger hasn’t set in all the way yet, but it has a good bit. After settling up and leaving, we then said goodbye to Buffy! She brought us some fresh fruit to chomp on, which we gladly accepted — fresh is hard to come by on trail.

The AT itself isn’t necessarily a race, but there are days where it feels like a small sprint is needed. Today, it was simple. The shelter slept 14, and supposedly it was going to be torrential downpour at some point tonight. While we were in prime position to get to the shelter first, we also just didn’t know who would or wouldn’t be there.

At the same time, the climb up the NOC is notoriously grueling. The NOC sits at 1727 feet, while Sassafras Gap shelter sits at 4328! There was a lot of fear mongering coming on from other hikers we’ve met on trail, telling us that “we weren’t ready.” But to be honest, fearmongering on trail is absolute BS. No matter what, we’re going to have to go through it. So why bother making it sound impassable? We’re thru hikers. We signed up for the suck.

To be fair to the difficulty of the climb, most of it was a blur to me. There was the Wade Sutton memorial, commemorating a fallen firefighter who lost his life while battling wildfires. I also met fellow blogger To-Go! I looked down and saw the signature sandals, and just had a feeling. It’s fun seeing the faces of the peers I read about. Sorry if you’re a blogger and I’ve missed you so far! But, there’s only so much time at camp (and as a T-Mobile user… so much reception).

At The Jump Up, we learned that there were two people already in the shelter. With drops of rain coming down, and all of us being in the clouds, I think at this moment we all quickly glanced at each other, and mutually agreed to start booking it at whatever paces we felt comfortable with. No one wanted to leave a shelter spot to chance. Cheese Curd and I hiked relatively quickly, so we were flying up the slippery uphill and were there within 20 minutes. The rest filed in about 10 minutes later. Danielle, who we’d lost earlier, sauntered in last. She’s a huge NCAAW fan, and had to catch the game on a ridge. Luckily, our gang of 6 (Richard, Anne, Michaela, Danielle, Cheese Curd, and me) snagged the bottom floor of the shelter right when it started to rain a bit harder.

We spent the rest of the time just… hanging around! One of my fears before entering the trail was the boredom of reaching camp by 3. But today, we had each others’ company. That plus food and shelter from the storm. We struck up a conversation with the others that were already there; turns out there was yet ANOTHER Masshole with us! It’s crazy how many New England’s specifically I’ve met on trail.

The shelter filled up within the hour, with the other weary hikers accepting their fates, and sleeping in their various shelters. Here, I also met Axe and Lightsaber! The pair were carrying axes, as tributes to their Philmont origins. One had the eponymous lightsaber, and the other was carrying a horn. They were REALLY fun to talk to.

Today hasn’t sucked yet. But I’m preparing for a world of suck soon. I can’t complain since we’ve had it pretty lucky with weather up til now. But on the horizon, you can already see that’s about to change…

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