WOW!!. All I can say about this past weekend is WOW. I have been backpacking for 25+ years. The weekend of January 9,10,11 was probably one for the ages. I personally cant remember having such a diverse weather weekend than this one. All week I was looking at weather reports for Roan TN. But as we all know, weather is reported from towns "approximate" to where the trails actually are. Anyone who has ever hiked this route knows it has so many variations in altitude you cannot really get a handle. Roan Mountain TN is the easiest town to get weather from. But its altitude is ~2500 ft. The actual Roan Mountain is ~6200 ft. Big difference! It can be sunny and warm in the town and snowing and cold on the mountain.. Weather forecast all week said 60% chance of showers Saturday with temps in the mid 40's. So I took off 10 degrees and using my brilliant sense of deduction figured we were safe. Mid 30's and rain. Cold, wet, but not too bad and not an all day thing. Plus, it looked like it would be over by Saturday afternoon in time for a nice cool evening. HA... Let me also mention that my Carolina Panthers were playing in an NFC playoff game Saturday night at 8:30 PM. To me, being in the outdoors trumps a game (even of playoff implications). But I still figured we might be miserable for a while. All good backpacking trips must have at least some time for misery. It is what makes most men come back. Its also what makes many men sell everything on E-Bay at half its original price and swear off backpacking and ever being cold again. To each his own. Anyway, 5 of us (and one really tough Golden Retriever) drove up Friday starting at 1 PM. We met at the hostel off of 19E. We dropped my car there and piled into Robert's Forrester (2 packs strapped loosely on top) for the ride up to Carvers Gap. Highway 143 is a twisty/windy long incline of about 10 miles that takes you to Carvers. This is the summit of the road but in the summer you can go up another 1000 feet to the Old Cloudlands resort and another 200 feet to the highest shelter on the AT (Roan Mountain High Shelter). We were going the northern route so we parked and got out. On the way up, I started noticing snow on the roadside and in some wooded areas it looked quite deep. I never noticed any reports of snow. Hmmmm, maybe I should have packed my gaiters? Well, too late now for that. We started up the AT and passed a couple folks who were coming back down from a day hike. I asked them how deep the snow was and they said "not too bad, maybe mid calf in a few places". Mid calf??? Actually in several places we had to forge drifts that were knee high post holes. But really it was about ankle high.. And it was not a slush so I only got a little ice in my boots. Our intention was to camp on Grassy Ridge. But when we got to the split in the AT where the site to Grassy goes right, Robert and I talked and decided the wind was really picking up (25-30 gusts). Probably going to Grassy Ridge would be a crap shoot since its not much cover. We were also not 100% sure where the water source was there so we decided to go about 1.5 miles to the Stan Murry shelter. I knew that the shelter had a water source (even though I could not remember where), and it was flatter. We had about 45 minutes of daylight left so that would be enough to get us close. Luckily someone had come up from the 19E side since it had snowed and that helped us to follow the trail. Nothing like the blind leading the blind huh? Also, the white blazes are easy to follow with a good light. We had some more post holes of snow but made it to Stan Murry by 6PM. No one else was out there (imagine that) so 3 guys decided to sleep in the shelter. I really don't like AT shelters so I decided to clean off some snow and set up my tent. I like the 4 sides closed as opposed to an open shelter. Jason is like me and set up his tent too. There was no wind when we got there (more on that later) but if it started to blow east to west, it would blow right in the open side. Not my idea of fun but to each his own. Plus I am not scared to see Coyote's, bear, cat, snakes, skunks or other wild animals. But I hate mice. Might have something to do with one of them crawling in the sleeping bag with me in a shelter I stayed in back in the 80's, but in any event I hate them. After we tuned in around 10 (we spent about an hour trying to start a fire with wet wood), the wind started to pick up. First it was a light breeze, then a steady breeze, then gusts in the 30's. Then a constant 30 MPH and 50+ gusts. Luckily my new REI tent can really handle some wind. I didn't do the greatest job setting it up but it only flapped a little. Saturday morning the wind had died down some but was still pretty stiff. We started out about 8:30 and it was warmer than we expected by 10 AM. We stopped off at the Over mountain Shelter and pumped some water from the spring. I was down to a long sleeve shirt and my capilene base. I knew the hike up the Humps would be a sweat maker so I had shed the jacket. As we started down Yellow Mountain Gap I looked back and saw clouds moving fast. Back over my shoulder, Roan Mountain was covered in a cloud mass and it looked pretty nasty. Starting up Little Hump, the clouds turned to a misty cold rain (back in that jacket). But by the time we summited Little Hump it had turned sunny and warmed back up (off with the jacket). We stopped down in the gap between the 2 humps and had lunch out of the wind. Just as we were finishing the temps dropped and the clouds rolled back in (where's my damn jacket). We started up the summit to Big Hump and the wind was picking up and the clouds were racing by to our west. By the time I reached the summit, it was blowing at least 50 MPH with some gusts higher than that. I have never been on the Humps when the wind was not blowing, but i have never seen anything like this. I probably should not have sat there but I finally found a small rock that gave me some protection and waited for the others. The sun was out again by now which made it more bearable, but it was still pretty raw up there. The walk down was very tough because the wind was coming from our right sides and it would almost blow you off the mountain. Finally we tuned north again and had the wind at our back( off with the jacket again) . The walk to Doll Flats was pretty nice as the sun stayed out most of the walk. We set up at doll flats and began our search for dry firewood. Just as we were getting enough together to start a fire, the rains came (Jacket). This time there was no stopping. We gathered in the 3 man tent and cooked in the vestibule. After eating we sat around and talked for an hour or so. At 7:30 the rain let up so I scurried back to my own tent. My feet were a little cold so I changed to my sleep gear and settled in planning to read. The wind had settled when the rain started but now it was picking back up. The only good thing was the rain was making it warmer outside. I must have fallen off because my "pee" alarm went off about 2:30. I decided I wasn't going to hold this one until daylight so I grunted through the pants on/jacket on/zipping the tent door/zipping the fly open- dance and walked into pea soup. Fog so thick you could literally not see your hand in front of your face. I didn't venture too far off for fear I would never find my tent again. As soon as i got back in the tent, the rain started falling again heavily. But it was till warm. AND the wind was picking back up as a nice bonus. Sometime around 5:30 I woke up cold, really cold (can I wear my jacket in my bag?). So I cinched up the bag, put on my gloves and hat and tried to sleep some more. The rain had stopped so I had hopes that the weather events were over. Finally about 7 I decided to stop the tossing and get up. When I unzipped the fly, I knew something was going on. The fly had ice all over it and the mist that I had seen at 2:30 was freezing all over everything. It must have dropped 20 degrees since 2:30. According to my Suunto Watch it was 28. So I packed up all my stuff inside the tent and decided some nice hot oatmeal would be good. Let me add a little information here: I use alcohol stoves (Pepsi style) exclusively for cooking. I dehydrate my own food and all I do is basically heat water. I have never had a problem getting it to light in all kinds of conditions. My Iso-Pro stove has had issues many times in cold weather. I have used both HEET and Denatured alcohol but I prefer HEET. I was short on HEET at home so I made a side trip Friday to Wal-Mart to get some. They had a 4 pack on sale so I figured buy it and that would last all spring and summer. Did you know there are 2 kinds of HEET? I didn't realize it and grabbed the first 4 pack I saw. Red is Iso-Heet (Meaning it uses isopropyl alcohol). hard to light and burns horribly. So after 20 minutes of trying to light it I gave up and ate a cold hard Clif-Bar. Figured I was going to be at the car in 2 hours and could get something hot for lunch. Anyway, we packed up the stuff (tent fly still had some ice) and headed to the car. The walk down from Doll Flats to 19E is great. I really had a great weekend but I am glad we got as lucky with the weather as we did. It could have been much worse. the jacket was glad to be back in its closet too.....
