Day thirty-five

I woke several times in the night and I was awake when Ken & Rangely crawled out of their tents. Ken is a marine biologist from Florida. Rangely is retired but I don’t know from what. She’s also a runner and she runs a camp for abused children.

I opened my eyes and there was a huge cricket. That thing looked like it was 3 inches long. They must be what is making all the noise at night. Fortunately it was on the outside of the tent. I got out of camp about 8 a.m. and had a 1200 foot climb. Eventually it looked like it evened out, which it did, and I was thinking what a nice 8 mile hike this was going to be, with the breeze blowing. The forests in Tennessee are too quiet. This is the Cherokee National Forest and they don’t have any birds. It’s too quiet, and when the fog rolls in it is too spooky. At least it wasn’t too hot today. Then it started getting rocky and it started going up and I’m thinking, “This can’t be right”, but it was.  There were two trails, High Ridge Trail with the white blaze and the other trail with the blue blaze. Had I known what High Ridge Trail was, I would have taken the other one. I stumbled and fell. I stubbed my big right toes twice. When I got to the top and took pictures I had a bar on my phone so I called CJ to see if she got home okay. Then on the way down there was this huge drop. I didn’t cry, but I did whine, “This can’t be the trail.”

I tried to go another way but that was the trail. I had to put my poles on one wrist and then lower myself down. When I got to the bottom there was a white blaze. It seemed like a really long bunch of rocks and at one point I slipped and landed on my butt, but my pack was in a good position so I just sat there for a while. I think Rangely and I are going to stay in the shelter tonight and it feels like it’s cooling off.