Day 59 - Back on the Trail, MacAfee Knob & Tinker Cliffs

Monday, June 1st - Got up at 6:30, earlier than needed, but wanted to check email one
last time, plus I need to finish packing (Mark had done most of his packing the night before). No emails, which was a bit of a surprise. Weather.com for this area shows a nice stretch, but quite hot. Mark came up around 7:45 and we ate another large breakfast courtesy of Mark's mom. A good meal for the trail. Finished packing and headed back to the 311/Catawba interchange around 8:45, arriving around 9:20 or so. Not surprisingly, many fewer cars in the parking lot this morning - a Monday - than when we first arrived on Saturday. Left at 9:30, with many wishes of "Good Luck" and "Be Careful" from Mark's mom and aunt.

Today's trails and hiking were probably our best of the trek so far - very even trails, and beautiful weather. MacAfee Knob is sort of the Old Rag of this area, and is a very popular climb - so the trails were created with tourists and day-hikers in mind (picture a 4-lane highway). Nice for us too. Quite a contrast to the life-threatening trails leading from the Dragon's Tooth on Saturday! It took us roughly 2 hours to get to the Knob, bypassing two shelters along the way. The actual Knob was everything it was promised, a just spectacular vista of the local mountains and valleys. Not surprisingly, the view from the Knob itself is allegedly the most photographed overlook on the entire Appalachian Trail - and we got several photos, courtesy of a local family who happened to be there when we arrived (I sent Pete one from my phone - see above).

After about a half an hour, we pushed on, stopping for lunch at the Campbell Shelter (and also entering ourselves in the Register there). Then we had a rather frustrating time at Tinker's Cliffs, another landmark spot. Apparently the trail doubles back on itself before going up on the top of the cliffs; well, we (and many dozens of others) missed this - it was VERY poorly marked - and instead we struggled around the bottom of the cliffs on a false but well worn trail. As a guess we were about 20 feet left and 20 feet down from the "actual" A.T., and it was QUITE a struggle. We finally reached the end of the cliffs, and I (finally) insisted that we return to the starting point and figure out what we had done wrong. Then Mark noted a pair of blue blazes on the rocks next to a steep cleft in the cliffs, and 30 feet later - voila! - there was the A.T. again, with a blaze right there in front of us. To put it mildly, we were both furious - especially me. We have had hundreds if not thousands of blazes where none were needed, but here was a critical spot that was reduced to pure luck. [We learned the particulars from other hikers later, only a few of whom lucked into it on arrival.] But I supposed we saw an unusual, and far harder section, of the A.T., than intended.

Continuing on, the trail down was equally gentle, and we stopped at Lambert's Meadow Shelter, where we saw Kan-Do, who we had seen 3 days before. After a brief chat, and some water, we continued on with the intent of tent camping (no shelters for another 10 miles). Around 6:30 or so (5 miles after Lamberts), we came to a cut that appeared to have been a power line cut or old road - nothing there now, but I suggested to Mark that we camp at the apex, about 150 feet up from the A.T., and we did indeed find a small level area at the very top that was just barely large enough for our two tents. So we planted it for the night, 15 miles in. Upon inspection, we found that an old version of the A.T. (long closed off) had once come out right where we were camping. So tomorrow we're heading to the 220 interchange (about 4 miles) for breakfast/lunch at Shoneys, plus food resupply, then back out again.