#7 Standing Bear to Devil’s Fork Gap

4/13: It was a pretty uneventful day today. We woke up at Standing Bear Hostel and got all of our stuff together. Unfortunately though, someone took Hawk’s trekking poles on accident, and left their’s behind. They were the same brand and type, just the ones they left had tape on them. Free duct tape! We can’t complain. The night before as we sat around the fire Kori got a trail name! When asked about what plans we had for after the trail she started talking about applying for the show Survivor, so now Kori is Survivor! Anyway, as we were leaving someone asked us incredulously if we were going to hike today because it was supposed to rain all day. It’s the AT! It always rains. If we stayed back every time we were told by someone it was going to rain, we’d still be in Georgia. We started hiking in the very humid weather so we got sweaty and icky pretty quick. We hiked to a gap to eat peanut butter and honey on tortillas for lunch, and then hiked to a water source where we camped for the night. It was a little over a 10 mile day, and it felt so nice to be out of the Smokies where we could tent camp in between shelters again. We ate a Knorr Rice Side for dinner and Survivor shoved a Swiss Roll in Hawk’s face, and then we went to bed full and happy.

4/14: It was a windy and rainy morning, so we stayed in our tent to procrastinate getting up, which paid off because the rain stopped around 7:45 and we got moving after that. The winds roared up the mountains as we hiked. We got to a parking lot and some hiker friends said that they were going into town because it was supposed to rain and maybe thunderstorm all day. We decided to keep going because if we know anything, it’s that we’re fine hiking in the rain. We hiked up to Max Patch, which is a bald on top of a mountain, and the wind howled around us. We got some great views up there though!

On top of Max Patch! If only we brought a frisbee

We hiked down and cruised to lunch where we sat on a patch of flat ground and ate packets of salmon (I know, so fancy) on tortillas. There was light on and off rain until about 1:30 when it got steady. We only had a mile to the shelter but it was all uphill, and we trudged up as fast as we could to get a spot in the reportedly small shelter. Luckily we were the first ones there, so we grabbed spots and put on dry clothes. It’s weather like this that gets dangerous if you don’t plan ahead to stay dry. It’s supposed to get down to the low 30s at night, so we made sure to stay dry as we filtered water, cooked, and hung our food bags. We then hunkered down for the night and played cards until bedtime.

4/15: To call what we stayed in a “shelter” would be generous. There were so many holes in the logs that even though there was a tarp covering the front entrance, wind pushed through the cracks and blew in our faces all night. When we woke up, it was snowing and cold. Everything had a light dusting of powder on top, including our faces because of the holes in the walls. We had to slam the ropes on our bear sacks into the floor of the shelter because they were frozen solid and we couldn’t untie our food bags. We needed Poptarts ASAP. Finally we got them untied, and then ate a quick breakfast, put on our half frozen shoes (we’re now more appreciative of thawed shoes), and started hiking as quick as our cold legs would take us. There was snow and ice all along the trail, and we would’ve taken more pictures, but again, I cannot stress this enough, it was cold.

At one point the wind blew chunks of ice from the trees and a few landed on our heads, which felt like Mother Nature was throwing frozen ping pong balls at us. Anyway, as we hiked, the sun broke through the clouds and on the other side of the mountain, there was no snow to be found. We hiked in and out of the frosted snow hills, until we reached a low enough elevation where it had just rained. From then on it was an easy hike to the shelter. We got there at around 2 and met a new group of hikers also looking to resupply in Hot Springs the next day. As we were winding down for the night, Hagrid hiked in! We chatted for a bit and then went to bed because we were tired after the long night before. We planned to hike 3 miles to get to Hot Springs, and when we get there, we’ll eat a big breakfast and maybe take some showers because man, we stink!

4/17: After a fun “Nero” Day (a near-zero mile day) in Hot Springs, we got breakfast at a local diner where we both ate gigantic amounts of food and then headed back to the trail, which goes right through the town. We ran into Sunshine and Otter when we got into town, and we planned to hike out together. So after breakfast, we hiked on, and soon we were going up a very steep incline for a very long time. We did get some great views of the river as we climbed though, and after a few miles the trail flattened out a little bit.

We were at water level when we started hiking

Then we had another big climb to the campsite that we planned to stay at near a fire tower. When we got there we were tired and hungry, but we had Jimmy Johns! Hawk’s relatives in Asheville met us in Hot Springs for dinner and brought us each a sandwich to pack out! After we ate, we pitched our tent with Otter and Sunshine and hung out for the night. Then at around 8, we see Hagrid, the legend, hiking in just as the sun was setting. And she brought beer! We didn’t drink any though because it was bedtime, and even though we only did 8 miles, it was a tough day so we felt wiped out.

4/18: It was another high of 71 degrees uphill day and it was too hot for us fragile Michiganders (Otter and Sunshine from Houston thought it was great weather). Anyway, we trooped up the mountains until we got to lunch, and right down the road was a small country store that sold ice cream bars! So we each ate a Klondike Bar and that made us very very happy. We hiked the rest of the miles to the shelter which was 11 from where we started, and set up camp. We knew it was supposed to rain overnight, so we set up our tent because the shelter faced directly into the wind. We ate couscous for dinner and then went to bed soon after because our bedtime is 8 and nothing can change that at this point.

4/19: Wooooh boy it was windy during the night. The weather forecast predicted gusts up to 60 mph and our tent would’ve sailed away into the sunset if we weren’t laying in it. Then it started raining too, so we just hoped our stuff would stay dry, and for the most part, it did! We woke up with a steady rain that continued all the way through our hike. It was cold, miserable, and wet, but we went a lot faster than usual to keep warm. We ate a quick lunch at the shelter that was around the 300 mile mark, and decided to keep moving to the next one. We hiked through swimming pools of rainwater (not literally, but close enough) and our feet got soaked. Well, everything was soaked, but especially our feet. We cruised up and down a few hills to the shelter, and we made it in less than 7 hours! That was our longest day yet, 14 miles, and we crushed it! Otter and Sunshine came in soon after us, and so did our friend Keebler, who invited us to stay with her family and eat Easter dinner with them! So tomorrow we planned on hiking 2 miles to the gap, and getting picked up for a resupply and egg dying! We’re so excited :)

So now we’re hanging out with a bunch of hikers and Keebler’s family for an Easter feast. We wish everyone a happy Easter and a happy Passover!

Happy trails!