It all started on April 15th at about 12:30 at night. There was a bunch of us crammed into Lost Mountain Shelter at 3,400 feet right out of Damascus. Some of us debated whether to stay in Damascus for another night but decided that if we let weather dictate our hike we'd never be on the trail. Bad decision.
Rain was steady at first then started coming down hard as the wind picked up. Of course, the shelters are structured to take advantage of the wind in the summer. Winter and Spring is a different subject. As the wind increased we heard the trees started to come crashing down...a few branches on to the roof of the shelter. There were about five tenters around the shelter and I have know idea how their tents held firm.
By morning the rain and mitigated but it remained very windy. Again debated whether to stay in shelter or press over the highest point in VA, Mt. Rogers. Of course we decided to press on. Another big mistake.
As soon as we left, the clouds opened up. For a while, it was like the end of the world because the wind was blowing us sideways (my rain jacket hood wouldn't stay on my head), the rain was driving hard and water was literally gushing out of the mountain and of course the trail became a raging stream we had to slosh through. Since I am wearing boots, my feet stayed fairly dry, but the others are wearing trail shoes so feet were soaked.
As we got up to Brier Ridge things actually settled down a bit and it seemed like the worst was behind us. Tree Frog, Fire Fly and I stopped at Thomas Knob Shelter (on top of Mt Rogers) for a late lunch and met up with Crazy K and Austin. Just before that we saw our first wild ponies so we thought that life was looking up. After a hot lunch we decided that it would be smart to get off the top of the mountain and shoot for Wise Shelter. A wise decision.
On the way down Tree Frog came around the corner and bumped into a big black animal and freaked out. Thought it was a bear. In fact, it was a wild pony on the trail - apparently pregnant. After things settled down, we got some great close up pictures and even pet the darn thing.
Anyway, outside of the trail still being completely flooded we thought that life would be good again once we got to Wise Shelter. Silly notion.
Had dinner and set up our bags in the shelter thinking we might be good for the night. As the evening progressed the wind picked up (of course right into the shelter) and it began to sleet at around 2:00 am (I know b/c I had to go out and pee). As the evening progressed I got colder and colder, had my long johns on and put by fleece and wool socks on - even with a 15 degree bag. At about 4:00 am I peeked out of my bag and noticed that it was all grey on the ground. Didn't think much about it until 6:30 am when we got up and realized that the bottom of our bags were dusted with snow and there was two inches of snow on the ground (remember, this is mid-April in VA). My little temp. thing said it was about 23 degrees - not too bad, but with the wind, it had to be in the low teens.
We scrambled to get dressed - wet trail shoes frozen solid - but boots fine. My "camel back" froze and the connections would not come together so I had no water.
So...on top of all of this we had to hike across Stone Mountain - a wide open plateau where the wind compresses into a narrow gap. I swear it had to be a 60 mph blast moving sideways against us as we made our way down to The Scales. I have NEVER experienced such wind in all of my backpacking - ever step had to be forced into the wind and I nearly got knocked down several times. The good news is that it was sunny (but very, very cold).
Made it down to a decent elevation and then it was like we went from Mars to Earth! No more wind, the sun was hot, no more flooded trails and I ended up stripping off all my clothing to my running shorts and shirt - all within about a five mile stretch!
The AT presents a tremendous variety of terrain, wild life and weather over the course of one day. Pretty amazing!
Anyway...sorry for long message - but this was the most challenging two days of the hike thus far...and I thought it would have been in the Smokies!
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