After the whiny lament of my last post
I'd forgive you if you had decided to give up on this blog. But stick
with it, dear reader, as things have taken a turn for the better and
my troubles have been temporarily brushed to one side. Trust in The
Great Outdoors to heal thy woes and lift thy spirits. I've spent a
week in gorgeous North Carolina, hiking, driving and hanging out in
some lovely places.
The Great Smoky Mountains
I picked up my car in Charlotte, where
Spring was in evidence and the modern art museum had a fantastic
exhibition on the architect Mario Botta. For my first solo road trip
I'm driving a jaunty little white Toyota Yaris – dinky but
ridiculously cute (and easy to park). As some of you already know, I
actually only passed my driving test 3 weeks before leaving for this
trip! Yes, I've spent my entire life living in cities and riding a
bicycle, and only got my licence when faced with an epic overseas
roadtrip. So this means I'm a fairly novice driver (although by the
time I get to New Orleans I'll be an old pro). For this reason I
asked the google to choose a route from Charlotte to Asheville which
avoided the freeways. (I've not driven on my own on a freeway before
so wanted to get some general practice in first.) The upside was that
my journey was beautiful. I meandered round the winding roads of
North Carolina, through lofty mountains and past shimmering lakes,
slowing to 20mph in the quaint, picturesque old towns and gawking at
the vistas when reaching the tops of the passes. The downside was
that it took almost four hours! I think I'll be aiming to get on the
freeway sometime soon.
Charlotte Museum of Modern Art
SFMOMA designs and model
Spring has sprung!
Road trippin'
A typical day during my time here in
North Carolina has gone somewhat like this. I wake up, drive to some
small village and find the welcome centre or the park ranger. Get a
map and ask the friendly person there to recommend a hike of about 8
miles or so. Drive to the trailhead and do said hike. It's worked
pretty well so far. Yesterday evening I visited the Nantahala Forest Ranger station and received a hearty 10-mile hike
recommendation along with a proper (not free!) topological map of the
area. At 9.30am this morning I was at the trailhead, ready to go.
This trail was near Standing Indian Mountain, and unlike the trails I've
trodden (trod? trid?) thus far it was largely through a forest rather
than up to a lookout and then back down. But I've seen some great
vistas, and taking inspiration from the Appalachian Trail thru-hikers
I met the other day (more on that later!) I thought I'd go and get
lost in the woods instead.
The trail started innocuously enough,
with a pleasant saunter by a gurgling, gushing creek, heading
upstream on a gentle incline. Every now and then I'd leave the creek
behind and head into the forest only to hear its happy tune again and
rejoin it pretty quickly. Soon I was having to criss-cross the creek,
navigating fallen logs and wobbly rocks, and I was thankful for my
sturdy North Face walking boots which I purchased in Oregon.
Trail tunnel
Fallen trees over creek
Into the woods
Shrooms
The forest became thicker and thicker,
often causing me to stoop as it overhung the trail. On the occasions
when I left the creek behind there was malevolent silence, (aside
from the crunch crunching of my feet on the trail). Several times the
trail became extremely hairy, with a sheer drop down one side of a
ledge no wider than a foot. At such times I repeated my mantra “She
was as sure-footed as a mountain goat” and it seemed to serve me
well. It also became apparent that this trail had not been followed
any time recently. There were no fresh footprints and many sections
were obstructed by fallen trees and abundant undergrowth. I was
having to beat back branches and brush copious amounts of cobwebs
from my arms and face all the time. Aside from being annoying, it
heightened my sense of fear. So this wasn't a popular trail, then?
Was I even likely to encounter another person? What if I slipped and
broke my ankle, what then? I pressed on regardless.
After about an hour I was gripped by a
wholly irrational fear that I was going to be eaten by a bear. Black
bears hang out in these woods and I've read all about them. I'd be
easy prey, for sure, being small, puny and completely incompetent at
any form of self-defence. I picked up speed, tramping as quickly as I
could through the forest. Soon I was surrounded by tall, naked trees,
not yet in their springtime glory (I'm here about 4 weeks too early,
apparently) and lots of dry, crunchy leaves underfoot. In the 'Bears
101' leaflet I'd picked up at the Ranger Station it instructed me to
make lots of noise so as not to cause the bear to believe it was
being snuck up on. (This annoys them, apparently.) So I continued to
crunch along, singing the Paladin theme tune from Stand By Me, my
go-to hiking song. “ 'Have gun, will travel' reads the card of a
man. A night without armour in a savage land.” This just made me
feel worse, as I began to get extremely jumpy and find every single
noise as ominous as a looming bear. Then I had an awful thought. What
if my singing wasn't repelling the bear, but enticing him? What if I
was basically saying “Here, bear. Here's a juicy lunchtime morsel;
a tasty treat.” What if my singing was encouraging him to draw
near? I practically galloped through the forest, scared even by the
echo of my own footsteps and longing for the sight of another human
being.
Nothing but trees...
Bear literature
I wasn't sure how far I'd come, and I
didn't fancy spending time stationary, examining my $10 topological
map, as that might make me more obvious to the bear, and anyway, when
I was stationary the silence was maddening. If I was hiking in
England, I thought, apart from the fact that there would be lots of
people around (what with it being a small country and all) there
would also be lots of noise. The buzzing of bees, the chirruping of
birds, that kind of thing. And when hiking in Australia one is
practically deafened by the cacophony of animal noises. Aside from
the never-ending squawk of cicadas there is any number of magnificent
birds to keep you awake at all hours of the day. But here it was
simply, eerily -- nay, ominously -- silent. Apart from my footsteps,
of course. My constant, noisy, bear-inviting footsteps.
I knew from my map that at the 6-mile
mark there was a place called Park Gap. Four different trails
intersected here, so in mountain trail terms it was somewhat of a
major junction. I imagined this as a cheery picnic place, complete
with information board, carpark, perhaps some running water, and,
hopefully, human company. I hastened forward, willing the rest point
nearer. I imagined arriving there to be greeted with the sight of a
friendly, bearded hiker in his sixties, eating a sandwich while
perched on a rock, with a jaunty cap and sturdy walking stick. I
would gratefully fling my sweaty arms around him and smooch him on
the lips. “Save me from the bear!” I would cry. Etc. I'd been keeping
up this pace for two hours now, surely the Gap was close?
And then, all of a sudden, I arrived.
And there was nothing. No cars, no picnic table, no information
board. And, significantly, no sign of human life. Just a clearing in
the woods with a few different trails marked in gaps in the trees. My
heart sank. Still, I was pretty hungry so inhaled my lunch in 10
minutes and didn't let myself stop to ponder the unpopularity of
these trails. I continued onwards, with only 4 more miles to go. It
was a relief to know I was over half way, and the next part of the
trail followed a high ridge for quite some time. My visibility was
much better than in the depths of the woods and I felt as though I was on the home stretch. I
was feeling chipper, with thoughts of bears receding and thoughts of
the gallon bottle of water in the boot of my car feeling increasingly
comforting. I got lost a couple of times but didn't mind too much.
So when I say 'trail' you may be
imagining a clear path through the forest, free from all obstructions
and plainly marked, with wooden steps on steep sections and handrails
where there are sheer drops. Unfortunately it's not quite that
civilised. The US Forest Service do keep the trails fairly well
maintained, but you have to be canny to follow them. They are marked
with sporadic blue rectangular splodges of paint on the side of a
tree, at about eye height. (Some trails are yellow, some red, the
Appalachian Trail is white, today's trail was blue.) They are supposed
to be visible from each other, so you can easily follow the blue
splodges until you complete the trail. Quite frequently, however, due
to either fallen trees, overgrown trees, controlled burning, or any
number of other reasons, it's very difficult to find the next marker.
Often today I simply followed my instincts, looking wildly around me
and wandering aimlessly until I glimpsed the elusive blue splodge.
Sometimes I backtracked considerably to the last one, and started
again, trying to put myself in the shoes of the trailblazer and
consider where they might have gone next. I estimate I added about 2
miles onto the trail just from going unintentionally 'off-piste' from
time to time. Up on the ridge there were lots of fallen trees, due to
North Carolina's recent storms, and several blue splodges had
clearly become casualties. It was hard to stick to the trail.
Can you see the blue rectangle?
And then I saw it. I froze. Right there
in the middle of the trail in front of me. A pile of fresh bear poo. My pursuer had been right here very recently. Gulp.
No, I didn't stop to photograph the
bear poo, I legged it. I grabbed a long, sturdy stick and brandished
it menacingly in front of me as I cantered on, manically trying to
complete the trail before the bear got me. Fear throbbed in my
eardrums and I slipped, lost the trail, struggled to concentrate and
thought every sound other than my feet was a bear snort.
As is tradition in such circumstances I
begain to compose newspaper headlines upon the occasion of my demise.
“BACKPACKER MAULED BY BEAR” and such-like. A solemn and
perfectly-manicured news anchor intones “The body of a young woman
was found in the Nantahala Mountains today showing evidence of being
mauled by a bear. It is believed to be that of the British-Australian
traveller reported missing a week ago from her Franklin AirBnB.”
Except then I realised that I wouldn't have been described as a
'young' woman, would I? I'm 35 for goodness' sake. And it would take
much more than a week to find the body, given how infrequently this
trail is followed, and how the bear would have probably dragged my
body off to its lair, leaving me with no recogniseable features and
so I would have to be identified purely by circumstantial evidence
and dental records.
See how the mind works?
Anyway, I'm rambling on. To cut a long
story short, I made it back to the car without coming into contact
with said bear. Just before the end of the trail I mercifully met a
couple of fellow hikers; locals. We passed the time of day and they
confirmed that it's too early in the season for many people to be
walking these trails yet. In a few weeks they will be much more
populated. They reassured me that a bear attack was unlikely and I
took comfort after I bid them adieu that if anything should happen to
me after that, it wouldn't be long before they caught up with me and
could help. I got to the end, propped my anti-bear stick against the trail's starting point for some other hiker to avail of, and drank half a gallon of water. Phew!
The rather grandly named 'Back Country Information Center'
I've done plenty of other hikes here,
including a couple of decent sections of the Appalachian Trail. This
is one of the longest continuous trails in the world, at
approximately 2,200 miles long, and passes through 14 US states along
the Appalachian mountains from Georgia to Maine. A couple of hundred
people per year carry out the entire length, 'thru-hikers', usually starting in early Spring in Georgia and taking a few months to reach Maine. I met my first thru-hikers the other day on a
glorious lookout called Wayah Bald, which gave panoramic views of the
Smoky Mountains. I chatted to one of them, a bearded chap with a St
Christopher medal around his neck who smelt more than a little ripe
after over 3 weeks on the trail. It would be an incredible,
Thoreau-esque feat to complete the whole thing. I may have to add it
to my bucket list.
The AT
Windswept on the AT (can you see the white splodge?)
Solitude in the woods
The white splodges of the AT
French Broad River from Lovers' Leap
Lost in the woods
Driving to a trailhead: rush hour in the Nantahala Mountains
View of the Smokies from Wayah Bald
Thus far I've only hiked in North
Carolina, but am planning to head to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
to complete some Tennessee trails while I'm in the area before
heading over to Nashville. At the moment I'm in the Nantahala
Mountains on the edge of the Smokies, staying in a converted room
above someone's garage. It's fabulous actually, complete with a
little kitchenette, bathroom and spacious living room. I've really
enjoyed being able to cook again (porridge for breakfast! Beef
casserole for dinner!) after weeks of being on the road. And it's
surprising how lovely it is to be in the same place for more than a
couple of days.
My bed and rocking chair
Welcome sign
Dinner view
Sofa cushion: overkill, perhaps?
I've not really done much other than
hike, to be honest. Asheville was pretty fab, especially for a music
lover. So much live music and a really lovely alternative vibe to the
city, which is rare in this part of the US. Felt a bit like Byron Bay stuck in the Deep South of the USA. Met some great people
there and sampled more brilliant America beer.
I'm also getting used to driving,
having now clocked up more than 500 miles since I started in
Charlotte. I've even had to make my way up some perilously winding
steep single track unsealed roads to get to some of the trail heads.
Sometimes I catch myself making my fingers numb, I'm gripping the
steering wheel so hard. I had to flag down an old boy at Wayah Bald who was out hiking with his grandson and ask him to explain how I go
about driving back down such a road (I found myself at the top of one
and hadn't quite considered the reverse situation). He explained that
I could put the car in a low gear and it would keep it from running
away with itself, and make it much easier on the brakes, with the
pleasant side-effect of preventing me from skidding too much. This
has been extremely useful advice which I have employed on every windy
downhill road since then. He also helpfully advised me against
picking up any hitchhikers, with the words “It's okay for me, I'm
armed, but you're just a girl on your own with no gun, you need to be
careful”. What a lovely well-meaning chap he was.
I have to say thank you to everyone who
sent me words of encouragement and support following the slight
wobble of my last post. It has cheered me up no end and I'm feeling
much more positive. You're all fab, you lot. Hope you enjoy reading
more about my silly adventures.
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