Day ONE Sunday June 2, 1996
Neels Gap - Cowrock Mt. 4.7 miles
One thing I learned last yr on our hike was to start out SLOW--so I planned only a 4.7 miles for today
Another thing we learned is its not so much the mileage its the ELEVATION GAIN that kicks your butt--
Neels Gap 3,125'
Neels Gap 3,125'
Bull Gap 3,644'
Levelland mt. 3,942'
Swain Gap 3,450'
TurkeyPen Mt. 3,550'
Rock Spring Top 3,526'
Wolf Laurel Top 3,766'
Baggs Creek 3,591'
Cowrock Mt. 3, 842
Upon leaving the inn @ 3,125 ft behind we started our climb of Levelland Mt. The first .10 mile took us to 3,644 ft. It didnt take long until we were
silently asking ourselves, "why are we doing this?" That is a question that remains unanswered to this day! Why does a chicken cross the road and all that...
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| Leaning on a tree to get the weight off for a few minutes! |
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| Emma takes 5 |
Upon leaving the inn @ 3,125 ft behind we started our climb of Levelland Mt. The first .10 mile took us to 3,644 ft. It didnt take long until we were
silently asking ourselves, "why are we doing this?" That is a question that remains unanswered to this day! Why does a chicken cross the road and all that...
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| View from the top of Levelland Mt 3,942 ft |
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| Rest Break top of Levelland |
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| Posing by Laurel on Levelland Back on The trail. |
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| Rest on top of Levelland |
Soon a man arrived. He was from VA. and he said he was going to Nanthahala and he had just re-supplied for 9 days and he believed his pack weight was 50 lbs! He tired to get us to take some food off his hands, we politely refused since we had 4 days of food in our packs and a stash waiting. We left him behind, but he soon caught up on a down hill section. He mentioned there were 2 thru hikers behind us.
At Corbin Horse Stamp we stopped for lunch. We had passed the VA hiker getting water from a spring with his water pump. Just up from there we had lunch on some logs, or was it rocks, I cant remember I'm sure it was something
hard and uncomfortable.
The VA hiker passed us (why didn't he give his trail name?) and so did the college student thru hikers. We never saw these guys again...they were making a pretty good pace!
We lunched on slim jim's and granola bars, trail mix and prunes, and I think Emma had some tuna salad.
Since we had only 4.7 mi. to do on our first day we took our time. JT was starting to get the idea of what the trail was going to be like by this time...
Since we had only 4.7 mi. to do on our first day we took our time. JT was starting to get the idea of what the trail was going to be like by this time...
We left our lunch spot with only 1.4 miles to go to our planned campsite. There was a problem with water, the campsite had no water!! SO I knew we had to carry water from a spring mentioned in the trail books so at Baggs Ck Cap we took a blue blazed trail down what seemed like FOREVER to get the water. Emma stayed with the packs. The stream was low and the water we got was dirty. We carried the water to our camp 1/2 mile away.
We arrived at Cowrock Mt. and our campsite. A great camp site with a view, and huge rocks just right for a kitchen!! We could actually stand up and cook for a change--There as a nice log for sitting to . Jt and I set our tent up on the grassy edge of the overlook so we could take advantage of the awesome view. The sisters put their tent under the trees on another grassy spot.
Before dark we decided to tie the food up in a tree to keep critters away from it. Emma was in change of bringing a rope for this task and she brought out this bright yellow nylon rope. We tied a stick on one end to toss it over a limb..the dang nylon rope had a backlash and it immediately went into a terrific KNOT..geeze..so we had to spend some time trying to untangle the rope.
Food secured we had a great fire to sit around while we chatted about the day we just had and the one to come! JT, the Beast became the Keeper of the Flame and he did an awesome job...we cleared the entire area of dead fall! Once it got dark enough the lights of a distant town came on in the valley below. Cowrock looks down on Town Creek, the view to the southeast includes Yonah Mt. and to the north Brasstown Bald.  |
| Trying it on for size |
The trees lining the gorge overlook was filled with birds, so we listened while we ate our not so hot camp food. The dirty water had to be strained 4 times to get it clean enough to use. IT was horrible but it was that or nothing!! You take what Mother Nature provides on the trail...and we couldn't spare any for bathing...
JT n I slept pretty good, we had rain overnight but the tent stayed dry! We heard what we thought maybe coyotes in the distance, JT asked if wolves were in these woods, I told him I didn't think so....
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| JT & Fire |
....and in the morning the birds sang the morning wake up song, we got up and got busy with trail chores- a breakfast of oatmeal. We broke camp and headed out for our second day of hiking.
time to rise n shine
