Day Hikers
Day 30 of the Trail: 17.5 miles hiked
Yesterday I drifted off to sleep to the sound of hikers talking and the sweeping of bear cables as hikers hung their food. In case you are not familiar, bear cables are cables that are strung high between two trees with a series of cables and pulleys in between for hikers to hang their food bag out of reach of bears. They are, at most, shelter sites for hikers to use.
Anyhow, when I woke up I packed my things and went to retrieve my food bag. To my surprise there were about 7 other bags just on my cable. As we hike from the shelter I fully realized the totality of situation. The shelter was full and the tree line was full of tents as if we had been at a mini Woodstock. There must have been 50 hikers there which was weird because there were only 5 when we showed up, and sure, I saw people come into camp but not that many.
Any how we left out with John leading at a quick pace. By our two hour break we had gone 4.9 miles. By lunch we had hiked over 10. After lunch was an arduous 2.5 mile climb going up nearly 1500 feet. The up side was there was a remarkably beautiful natural spring waterfall the trail zigzagged up for the first half.
We had received word that trail magic would await us at mile marker 317'ish near Interstate 26 where the trail crosses. It was just about 2.5 more down the road so we had dinner at Hogback Ridge Shelter and kept going to the parking lot at Sams Gap where we planned to camp and wait till 8 am when breakfast was supposed to be here.
Sams Gap is just a parking lot next to the interstate and we were in for a night of being lulled to sleep by passing trucks and cars. Only about 3-4 hikers passed the gap while we were there and continued an unknown distance farther down the trail. Around 8:30 am, or maybe later, a couple of cars showed up in our parking lo; some older gentleman with hiking gear. Now, I don't know why but they busted out their tents and pitched then right in front of their cars.
My thought were something like this, "Why would you drive here late just to camp in a parking lot? Why not get a room in Erwin that's 30 minutes away by car or Mars Hill which is closer? Can I use your car if your not gonna? Will you drive and get us pizza since you got nothing else going on apparently? Did you bring any treats for us real hikers?" Basically stuff like that.
Thomas calls people like that, day hikers, etc. tourists!
