May 1

May Day

It was a nice sunny morning leaving the shelter, and the trail was pretty flat.  After a few miles we came across a bench that looked out over some nice views.  There was a sign on a tree, pointing back southbound on the AT, that said "Springer Mnt 404 mi".  Nice!  I saw another one of those cool orange salamanders.  There were lots of stream crossings early in the day.  I took a lunch break at Hardcore Cascade.  Giggidy.  Refilled my water too.  Water was very plentiful today.  I passed a side trail that went down to Coon Den Falls.  Before long I came out to a road crossing at Dennis Cove Rd. and walked up to Kincora hostel.  Kincora is a rustic hiker hostel, hosted by Bob Peoples.  Bob is legendary on the trail, for many reasons, including the trail maintenance crews that he leads.  This area in Tennessee is full of Bob's and his crews work, whether it's metal mesh on the logs that cross streams to help the hikers' traction, or the many switchbacks that make climbing some of the steeper sections in the area a bit easier.  Slims was at the hostel tonight too, so it was good to see him again.  He had been here a couple nights ago, hiked on northward, then shuttled back to the hostel to see if any of us had caught back up yet.  Baltimore Jack was here at Kincora too, helping Bob.  Apparently it's been an extremely busy hiker season so far this year.  Bob gave us a ride into town to resupply.  I made a quick grocery store run, and then hit up Arbys.  $10 of food on the dollar menu.  Crushed it.  So I then went to Little Caesars and got a pizza.  I ate half of it back at the hostel, and would save the other half for breakfast.  Among the other hikers that filled the place to capacity, were 2 girls from Europe (Germany and Poland), that had an amazing story to tell.  They had "hitched" on a boat crossing the Atlantic, from Spain.  Gone to Miami.  Hitchhiked to New Orleans, and ended up on a shrimp boat somehow.  Now they wanted to see the Appalachian Mountains, before they needed to be in New York City, to return home in 2 weeks.  They had backpacking gear, and were hitchhiking in North Carolina, where Baltimore Jack and an employee from Mountain Crossings back in Georgia, saw them, picked them up, and brought them to Kincora.  They played a nice rendition of a Bob Dylan song for us on the guitar, on the front porch of the hostel.  A few of us stayed up late playing a rousing game of Monopoly.  Oh, and I did a load of laundry for the first time since Erwin.  Didn't shower though.  Kinda gross, but oh well.  416, the miles are just melting away.

With Bob Peoples.