First Zero

On the 12th, it was very hard to pull ourselves away from such a good place like Uncle Johnny's Hostel. Once we were moving the climb back into the mountains was not that bad. We made it to the first shelter fairly quickly but knew that we needed to move on. However this turned out to be a bad decision. As we climbed higher the temperatures dropped and the winds picked up. Before we knew it the rain started. This is were our luck of good weather from the last month ended. With the combination of being wet, the low temperatures, and the high winds made things very miserable. You could not ever walk fast enough to stay warm. Stopping to put on a rain coat did cut the wind but did little for warming up. At this point two fellow hikers (Cascade and Chainsaw) caught up to us and it did help mentally to know that we were not alone. To make things worse we had to climb another 1,200 ft and go another 4.3 miles before the Cherry Gap Shelter. At the top of the climb Cascade and I decided to started to jog to warm up. Dave's ankle was bothering him so he continued at a slower speed. The jogging did completely warm me up and we finished the last 3 miles in 45mins. To our surprise the 6 person shelter only had room for three more bumping the total up to 8. Cascade, me and Grandpa who we just passed on the trail. As quickly as posable I stripped off all of my wet clothing (which was everything) and put on all of my warm stuff. Dave rolled in about 50mins behind me however it was a great surprise when High Five and Enzed showed up about another 30mins later. I ended up giving my spot in the shelter to Enzed because there was no room for Dave and our tent needed to be set up anyway. Also she got her self dangerously cold and needed the warm shelter more then me. The day was truly one of our worst and it would be a huge understatement if I said it was difficult.

The next morning the sun popped out, of course. So we took all morning to have a fire and completely dried all of our clothing. We moved on to Cylde Smith Shelter just 9.2 miles down the trail. This was good for two reasons. First the next day we would have a large climb over Roan Mountain. Second Dave's ankle was still bothering him and my knee started to give me trouble.

So the original plan was to hike 14.3 miles to Overmountain Shelter (an old converted barn). The morning started with a couple hundred feet bumps before ascending 1,800 feet to the top of Roan Mountain. Despite being 6,285 feet high, Roan has no views so the only exciting part of reaching the top is the shelter there. The Roan High Knob Shelter is the highest on the entire AT and has four walls and a door (most shelters have only three walls). The next section of the trail was much more rewarding and enjoyable to hike because of a continuous bald that stretched over three little mountains. The views from there were much better. Later in the day we found a note from "Cascade" and "eNZed" telling us that there were going to Apple House Shelter which was almost 9 miles further than we had planned to go. After much debate we decided to push on as well because of the weather forecast (more rain). We finally arrived at the shelter around 7pm after 23 miles--our current longest day.

On the 15th we hiked a total of 18.9 miles for second straight long day and ended at Moreland Gap Shelter. The terrain was rolling with no big climbs. It was cloudy and pretty windy. The temperature was mid 50s. Nothing particularly exciting happened this day.

We woke up on April 16th to wind and rain. We made a mad dash to Kincora hostel only 6.1 miles away and spent the majority of the day there inside and dry. The hostel was run by Bob Peoples, one of the AT's biggest volunteers and a really nice guy. His hostel is run solely on donations (suggested donations is only 4 dollars per night) and provides free showers, laundry, and a shuttle into Elizabethton for dinner and resupply. We also received our first mail drop which included a bunch a goodies and a pair of sneakers for Jon.

The next day we left Kincora late because it's always hard to leave nice hostels. We started out moving pretty well. The trail followed a river for several miles before climbing steeply over Pond Flats Mountain. The climb wasn't really that bad until it got steep at the very end. We had lunch at Watauga Lake with some other hikers then continued on. From then on everything seemed to slow down and neither of us could move quickly even though the terrain wasn't particularly difficult. My ankle was hurting pretty bad and Jon got a new blister neither of which helped things. Somehow, despite being the last two to the shelter we managed to each get a spot in Vandeventer Shelter so we didn't have to set up our tent.

On the 18th we did another long day at 22.7 miles. The day was long but really pretty uneventful. None of the climbs were more than around 200 ft. My ankle was still hurting so it was a pretty slow day for me but Jon was drugged up on ibuprofen and was moving quickly. Once again we managed to get shelter spots despite being last in at about 7pm.


Anticipating reaching Damascus, VA we flew 10 miles in just 3 hours on the morning of the 19th. In the process we left TN for good and entered VA for the first time. Most of the rest of the day was spent relaxing and hanging out with other hikers. We went out for dinner and drinks in the evening and stayed at a somewhat sketchy hostel run by a church. There is really no caretaker so anyone can stay there so we didn't leave our stuff unattended.

Today (the 20th), we were a little more productive. It was our first day not hiking and we spent it doing laundry, resupplying, mailing home unused gear, and buying new boots for Dave. A good day off.

Next update in around 6 days give or take.

Jon & Dave