01/27/05

Day hike, September 23, 2002

I decided to do something besides work all the time, so I dusted off my old Danner boots that were close to 20 years old and in fairly sad shape as far as the condition of the leather.  They were WELL broken in however!  This hike was the beginning of my re-acquaintance with a love of hiking, the mountains, and being free of constraints...  The hiking staff you see in some of the pictures I grabbed out of haste that morning as I crossed Chilhowee mountain.  It was an apparent rotten stick laying on the ground, but after stripping off the decayed muck it proved to be well seasoned and solid.  I have since cleaned it up considerably, applied a coat of urethane, and created a good friend that I plan to travel many miles with.

Started out at Twentymile Ranger Station on the South-western boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  The ranger station is located off Highway 28 between Deals Gap and Fontana NC.  I hiked the Twentymile trail to Sassafras Gap on the AT then hiked about a mile north to Birch Spring Gap (campsite 113).  Had lunch there with a backpacker who was on his last day out of a seven day hike from Davenport Gap to Fontana.  He had retired a year earlier and had spent most of that time living out of his car, moving from area to area, park to park, and spending a lot of time in the backcountry.  VERY inspiring!

Twentymile Creek	Trail junction of the Twentymile, Twentymile loop, and Long Hungry Ridge trails	Appalachian Trail at Sassafras Gap
An interesting fungus	Another fungus, less interesting

 

 

 

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