Day 9 (136.9-150.5)

I started off the day at the NOC, trying to get the last bit of juice into my electronic devices before setting off. 10 o’clock rolled around and I decided that it was getting too late to wait any longer if I wanted to get any sort of substantial mileage in. I unplugged and packed up, stumbled out the door and made my way towards the trail. It was damp and cold as it rained throughout the night. 

The climb out of the NOC took a majority of my day on the trail as it was 4000’ up over 10 miles. Halfway through the climb the storm clouds rolled in again, the views were skewed and I was slightly disappointed as Cheoa Bald at the top was supposed to be a fantastic scenic point. As I got near the top I stopped to talk to an older gentleman named Mike who was slackpacking his way to Fontana where he would eventually get off and wait for his friend to start his journey in March at Springer and they would hike out together into the Smokies. 

I pulled over on the trail shortly after at Sassafras Gap shelter to eat lunch. The shelter a bit packed with hikers who were also trying to eat lunch out of the rain. A couple from Indiana and a gentleman from Georgia whose name was Stinger, a polite bunch of people sharing their stories of the trail so far. I swallowed down some poptart bites I snagged at the NOC and made the last little bit of the climb to the top of Cheoa. Still saddened by the lack of views.

Slogging up down the trail the sugar rush kicked in full swing and I felt myself more at a jogging pace. My ankles and knees were feeling great, probably due to the lack of downhill throughout the morning. I decided to carry the pace throughout the day. Later running into Mike again sharing the same story that he previously told, I jogged off. 

Further down the trail as I was rounding an upward bend I came to a screeching halt as I almost ran into a hiker huffing up a small incline. “Ope, Hello” I exclaimed, as the hiker turned it was none other than dumpling. “How are you even here?” She responds. Dumpling left roughly two hours ahead of me. I explained that I had been feeling great, and had a partial sugar rush that I needed to burn off. She laughed and let me scoot on by.

The day continued on and I was reaching Stecoah Gap where I’d hop off for the evening to check out another town, one that had I missed on my previous trek of the AT, Robbinsville. I bumped into one gear as he was making his way to Stecoah to meet his brother, one gear was hopping off as he was facing a terrible stomach bug. Noro, Giardia, I didn’t ask, I ran as fast as possible to get away. 

The last hiker that I would encounter for the day goes by the name “Hiker 109”, Sam would be his birth name. Now Sam was very skeptical about everything, had tons of questions, why I was running, what I was running from, where I was going, etc. we shared a good conversation as we approached the gap together. He had planned on pressing on for the evening through the gap as I got off for the evening. 

I sat at Stecoah Gap briefly, thumbing through phone numbers in my AT handbook for a hostel that could provide a shuttle into Robbinsville. I ended up landing on “A cabin in the woods”, a nice man named Craig made his way up the mountain and drove my soggy self down into town. Craig took the extra time to show me around, he pointed out the Ingles (grocery store), laundry mat, and the local Mexican restaurant where I’d later have a California Burrito. Town was good, small, but nice. 











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