Ben and I had planned to do another relatively short hike this weekend, but he unfortunately ended up needing to go to a funeral Saturday afternoon, so I was on my own for hiking. In this post, I mentioned that I had planned on a 14-ish mile hike one other weekend when Ben wouldn't be able to join me, but I scrapped it in favor of the hike described in that post. Since I had basically already planned this particular hike and shelved my plans for a while, and since I was planning a solo hike on about 12 hours' notice, I decided to resurrect those plans and go for it this weekend.
Also in the previous post, I described our ridiculous search for the Spivey Gap parking area. And damn if we didn't have another ridiculous search this time. I was so hell-bent on not driving past the parking area that I insisted that another pull-off was it. It was located right at the state line, and all of the trail guidance says the trail crosses the road "at the state line." So we stopped there, but I could not find the dang trail. So Ben (who was dropping me off) convinced me that we needed to drive a little further down the road, where we found the actual parking area. The last time I was here (with Latisha), the parking area was covered in snow, and it looked like it was just a little pull-off where 3-4 cars could park parallel to the road on the roadside. Now that there was no snow, however, I realized it's actually a paved lot where 8-10 cars can park perpendicular to the road. Who knew? Let's just say I'm glad I've done the sections of the trail that start and end at this parking area so I never have to go back.
Ben has previously done this section of the trail when he and his Dad (and his Boy Scout troop) hiked a lot of the trail "back in the day." So I'm not putting him behind in the "2,190-mile" department by doing this hike without him. And I knew that non-high-school-aged Ben would hate this hike, as it is a LOT of climbing, which is the worst thing on his calves (the compartment syndrome surgery he had a few years ago was mostly, but not totally, successful, and he gets some pretty severe calf/shin pain on strenuous hikes). On the other hand, I LOVE a lot of climbing, so why not tackle this one alone?
I also chose to do the hike southbound even though that's generally seen as the more difficult direction. The climb up to Big Bald (the high point of the hike) from either direction isn't a piece of cake, but the climb on the Spivey Gap side (the north side) is a little longer (it's about 7 of the 13.4 "official" miles) and a lot steeper (Spivey Gap is at a lower elevation than Sam's gap, so you're having to climb more coming up from Spivey). You probably know by now, though, that downhills are harder on me than climbing, and I definitely didn't want to tackle that side as a steep 7-mile downhill.
But man, it was tough. I don't usually have to take breaks while climbing. I may slow way down and kind of plod along, but I think it's usually better to keep at least some momentum going than to stop and have to re-start while climbing. But this climb was already kicking my butt within the first mile, and it didn't get any easier. I think I ended up stopping for a short break at least twice (on one of them, I had to grab a snack, because it's hard to eat when you're using all your oxygen to climb a mountain).
At one point about 1.3 miles in, I got off course, mainly because I was subconsciously looking for an easier route. Ha! This section of the trail wasn't as well-blazed as others, meaning that sometimes you'd go quite a while without seeing a white blaze. This particular area was one in which I hadn't seen a blaze in a little bit, and I had just finished climbing a steep set of rocks. There was a large (probably 3-foot-tall) rock in front of me and a trail leading off to the right. So I took the trail to the right! Still looking for blazes; still not finding them; and the trail kept getting narrower and steeper until I thought, "Okay, this is ridiculously difficult, even for the AT."
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This was part of my "off course" trail. Literally straight up a bank.
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A short bit after I struggled to the top of that bank, I decided I needed to backtrack and figure out what the heck happened to the AT. Best I could tell, there wasn't a trail junction or other spot where I had to pick from multiple different trail directions, so I was wondering where I could've gone off-course. Coming back down the side trail from hell, though, I could very easily see from a higher vantage point that, when I had taken the trail to the right when that tall rock stood in front of me, the AT actually climbed that rock and continued straight. Just about a 0.5-mile detour, but with the strenuous climbing (and with about 6 miles of strenuous climbing ahead of me), I was really kicking myself.
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| The detour |
I tried to take pictures of a lot of the crazy-steep climb sections (honestly, I was just trying to survive some of them and didn't pull out the camera), but it's really frustrating that the camera doesn't adequately capture the grade or the size of the steps. You'll just have to trust me that this was a tough one. Kudos to the Carolina Mountain Club, though, for building/maintaining so many daggone staircases.
...and several huge, old-growth trees. This one had obviously seen better days. I don't think I want any part of the storm or whatever else it was that brought this guy down:
Finally, I made it to the Bald (or so I thought)!
Views so far are good, but not spectacular. Hopefully they'll get better as I get to the top.
I had been hiking in sun all morning, and when I got to the bald these clouds started blowing in at a rapid rate of speed. I was hoofing up this mountain thinking that I was going to have zero view when I finally made it to the top because of these stupid clouds. It was kind of cool to watch them blowing across, though. Wait, what is that behind those clouds? Is that another bald? No, that's THE bald. I'm not yet there. I'm on the bald's baby brother. Still more climbing.
Views are getting better on the baby bald, though.
This is heading down the south side of the baby bald before heading back up the Big Bald (that's actually what it's called: Big Bald). Because why would you want to keep all that elevation you've gained previously? No, no. Go back down and do it again.
These pics were taken while walking up Big Bald, looking back on the baby bald I just went up and over.
Frickin' finally! Big Bald!
Yep, views are pretty stellar from up here. Hello, baby bald.
I sat on this little log to eat lunch. It was so peaceful up there. If you've been to Max Patch, the views from Big Bald are comparable to those at Max Patch, but (at least today) there were hardly any other people there. There were two people there when I got up there. One lady was meditating. No one was talking or making any noise. We were just taking it all in.
My view while eating lunch. The wind was blowing really hard, so the clouds blew over pretty quickly. I was glad the sun came back out, because it was actually pretty cold with the cloud cover and the wind. I understand how it's possible for people to get hypothermia hiking in the mountains in the middle of summer. I was cold just because I was wet from sweating and the wind was blowing. If it had been raining, it could've been really bad (although I did have rain gear and would've been fine). Just another good reminder to be prepared for any kind of weather (and for weather to change in an instant) when hiking in the mountains. Also a reminder that God takes care of me and knew that I didn't really need to do this hike back in February when I had originally planned, because I doubt I would've spent much time up on the freezing cold bald at that point.
After a couple of miles, looking back on Big Bald. Do you see it between the trees? It was close to this point where I ran into a CPA that I know from Knoxville. Hadn't seen him in years, and we both were looking at each other like, "Do I know you?" Hilarious.
The downhill on this hike was also a killer, and it had some pretty steep (albeit short) climb sections interspersed with it. I stopped to talk to my CPA friend for several minutes, and that helped, but man, my knees were toast by the time I got to the bottom.
The downhill always seems like a letdown, like the best part of the hike is behind you (because you've already seen the best views). Plus, if you're like me, it's torture on your body, so you really just want it to be over. This hike at least threw in some lovely view areas to help ease the pain.
This pic was taken after the last "big" climb during the downhill. That's Big Bald with the arrow pointing to it, so you can see how far we've come (I still had about 3 miles to go).
My Hoka Speedgoat shoes did great throughout this hike again. They may become my new favorites. But no matter what shoes I'm wearing, after a hike like this, my feet are going to feel bruised, and my knees are going to be dying. As an added bonus this time, my lower back was OUT. I've been sitting in a really crappy chair during work-from-home to this point, and it was taking its toll on my back. I had a new chair delivered on Friday, not a moment too soon. I pretty much couldn't walk and could barely move last night after finishing my hike and sitting in the car for two hours on the drive home, and it wasn't my legs. It was all my back. My back has never hurt before while hiking, so I can only assume the fact that it was already out-of-whack from the chair situation got exacerbated by my posture trying to save my knees coming down from this hike. It's feeling a little better today, and my sweet husband assembled my new chair, which I'm sitting in comfortably while I write this blog.
This hike had everything that I expected and wanted it to have. The views from Big Bald and the completely peaceful experience there were incomparable. I felt like I pushed my limits and really accomplished something when I was finished. But I tell you, this distance combined with this degree of difficulty IS probably the outer boundary of my limits, because I don't know if I could've taken much more. Getting back to the bottom was tough.
175.6 down; 2014.4 to go.
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