Day 5: Curly Maple Gap Shelter to No Business Knob Shelter

Dr. Dog’s knee is still barking up a storm. But at least there doesn’t seem to be any more swelling. (Cupcake’s taking credit for having the foresight to bring a truckload of ibuprofen and Arnica on this trip. I’m just sayin’.) Plus, one of the many cool things about Tim is that he’s definitely the kind of guy who will muscle through just about anything without complaining. Today would’ve been his last opportunity to bail, since the trail crossed a significant road where he could’ve gotten a bunk at a hiker hostel, or hitched a ride into the little trail town of Erwin, Tennessee. But he barely even slowed down at the crossing, pausing only a couple minutes on the Chestoa Bridge to snap a few shots of the Nolichucky River.

Here's a shot of Uncle Johnny’s hostel, which the trail passes just after crossing the Chestoa Bridge.
Tim forged ahead, but Rob and I stopped in to see if Uncle Johnny might sell us a toothbrush to replace the one Rob lost. No luck.

It was quite the kick-butt climb up to Temple Ridge, so Rob and I enjoyed frequent breaks. Check out those silver shins! Whoa. You might need a pair o'sunglasses to gaze on those babies.

After about ninety minutes and nearly as many switch-backs, we had reached the top of Temple Ridge, and this was the view we had of the river. Pretty respectable climb!

We encountered a couple significant blow-downs today – large trees that had fallen right across the trail, completely blocking our passage. One of them required some rather acrobatic maneuvering and bushwhacking to get up and around the obstruction, and I got a nice little gash on my right knee in the process. Joe will be impressed with that, as he thinks it’s cool when his mom comes home from a hiking trip with some war wounds and good stories to go with them.

We’ve got the No Business Knob shelter to ourselves tonight which is kind of nice. This is the kind of shelter where I’m glad to have company, because it’s so high up and remote that it would be a little spooky to be here alone.

And I guess we’re all a little jumpy, because as we were hunkering down for the night, we heard an odd noise that we could’ve sworn was the squealing of a wild boar (those really do exist in this part of the country, and believe it or not, they're believed to be more dangerous than bears because they're quite aggressive). After further investigation, though, we discovered the noise was actually just the echoing of a woodpecker as he was working on a nearby hemlock. Don’t ask me how we could mistake a woodpecker for a pig – I guess our imaginations are just on overdrive. And it’s not because of Rob’s five-dollar scotch, either – that’s been gone for two days now.

Here’s a little family portrait we did tonight after dinner, and you’ll have to excuse my deer-in-the-headlights expression. I think I was just a little distracted because I still had wild boars on my mind. The cool thing about this picture is, the photography was done with the aid of Rob’s trekking pole. Check this out: if you jam the sharp end of his pole into the dirt (so that it stands up by itself), and then unscrew the little knobby handle at the other end, you can actually attach a camera to the screw at the top and use the pole as a monopod! How cool is that?

The other cool photography trick was that we managed to make it look like Rob's pants are on fire.

The big tragedy of the day happened around 6 p.m. when Rob pulled out his espresso maker to brew up a cup, and found that the little bendy thing at the top seems to have broken in transit. Buh-bye, espresso. Rob is beaming smugly, however, over having the foresight to bring a backup coffeepot.

A mouse appeared in the shelter this evening. Might be an eventful night.