Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Birch Spring Tent Site (172.3 mi) to Siler’s Bald Shelter (195.5 mi)

Hiking Miles: 23.2

Total Ascent: 6,719.5 ft

Total Descent: 5,048.2 ft

Total Grade: 507.3 ft/mi

Steps: 56,262

After waking up close to 5 am, having a little breakfast and packing up my gear, I moved forward with a decision made the previous evening to test the method where I leave earlier than Stevie. Today’s plan involved leaving 30 minutes ahead.

It was light enough when I departed so I didn’t need my headlamp. However, after today’s test, the thought always was to leave much earlier (in darkness) to make a significant impact on timing efficiency. By 9 am, Stevie caught up with me at the Mollie’s Ridge Shelter where we originally would have stayed the previous evening had I not struggled with the terrain late in the day. Mollie’s Ridge was only 5 miles from our site, so leaving at least an hour or more earlier would work optimally going forward.

While at Mollie’s Ridge, I met a lady hiker named “Jade” who stayed there that night. I mentioned to her that my son was close behind and if she could watch for him while I went down a short path to collect some water. Stevie in fact did arrive while I was getting water and the two of them talked.

Jade was British and she lived in France. She had been very inspired by a speaker she listened to who had hiked the AT, so while here in the States for a brief vacation, she planned to hike the trail for two weeks. It was interesting that she carried a rather large canister of propane that easily would have provided enough for several weeks (maybe a month) of meals.

Overall, we had a fairly good hiking day. We almost achieved a 12 by 12 but we stopped for lunch literally minutes before noon. The focus was to push through several miles today, so we only captured a few videos and pics which was uncharacteristic of us to this point.

We crossed paths a few times with a young hiker named “Troy” who was from Northern Mass. We also climbed some very steep inclines (one being Thunderhead Mountain – 5520′ elevation), and suddenly I was feeling sluggish. And by 4 pm, I was seriously running out of gas, and it was looking like we were going to call it a day when we reached the Derek Knob Shelter. 

While there, we met South Park, Troy and one other hiker named “Old School”; they all were staying there for the night. The last 0.9 mile leading to that shelter, I finished remarkably strong after having a snack and Gatorade/Water mix. So Stevie and I decided to push another 5.7 miles to the Siler’s Bald Shelter in order to be that much closer to Clingman’s Dome in the morning. Interestingly, we learned that Kyle saw a bear the prior night who was sniffing around just outside his tent. Apparently he had spit out his toothpaste just outside his tent and that was enough to attract an inquisitive bear. We thought perhaps that was the noise (bear) that Stevie had heard.

We made it to the Siler’s Bald Shelter in good time just after 6:30 pm, and we set up our tents on a plush green grassy area. The ground was flat, but there were lots of flies and bees buzzing around. We sat at the shelter table, ate dinner (Cuban Rice, mashed potatoes and spaghetti), and spoke with a young couple from New York. They told us that they had attempted to hike Mount Washington twice on two consecutive New Year’s Days, but each time they made it only to the tree line before turning back. Beyond that, it was much too cold to safely hike.

During the night, we clearly heard one of the campers on site scream “Get out of here”, and we later learned that the gentleman yelling had seen a bear just outside his wife’s and his tent.