In awe

Tag: Camp

  • Day427 Smokies

    It was as advertised, Smokies is a paradise for people who like outdoors.

    I love every moment of it.

    I first heard of The Smoky Mountains National Park as a kid from the Smoky Bear TV ads.

    When I was a teen, a friend went there during one summer and he talked about swimming and camping and biking. Since then it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to visit it someday.

    I started doing camping stuffs just a few years ago and it was kind of on my radar as a place to go too, but because of my running schedule and also I was still not brave enough to go out on my own, I was relunctant to make a trip there.

    Smokies reminds me of the movies the Last of the Mohicans and Dances with Wolves. Well those two movies didn’t set in the Smokies – but I associated the trip with the two movies because of the wildness and remoteness of the place.

    I stayed a week in the Smokies, from Saturday to Saturday. The first and last couple days were at Smokemont campground. Then I went out on my own to do a loop backpacking on the Benton Mackaye Trail (BMT) to Deep Creek and took the Appalachian Trail (AT) back with the help of some connector trails (Hughes and Bradley Fork) to camp Smokemont. My family members were not conditioned or had the desire to do backcountry camping like me. Also the mileage is high, totaling about 60 miles in fouqr days.

    Day 1 of my backpacking was pretty easy. Hiked from Smokemont Campground  following the BMT. The horse trail/road out of the camp was flat and easy. The trip to camp 47 was relatively short. I started off around 11 am and got to my night 1 camp around 3 pm. There were some elevation gains and lost. I had about a 40 lb pack on me fully loaded with water and all the things I thought I need. Certainly I could and should have packed lighter (firekit/firstaid was not used and so with many other gadgets).

    Night 1 campsite was peaceful. I had nice weather. It was by a river. I slept with fireflies dancing around my head with the sound of roaring river nearby. I had the camp all by myself.

    Day 2. I woke up early – not super early but got up when my body couldn’t sleep any more. Made Breakfast, and packed up. Little did I know it was hardest day I think. I felt the whole day was always climbing. I encountered a thunderstorm in the afternoon. Even with a rain jacket on, I was wet. It was also first time hiking through a storm. There was only one lightning strike near me, and I was on the descend portion at the time. I was not afraid. I got to camp at Mt Sterling around 5 pm. It was a solid day of 8 hours hiking.

    Night 2. I arrived at camp cold and wet. First thing was to have shelter set up, then cook, and last was water collection. I went to bed when sun was about to set. I had the site all by myself the second day. Nobody hiked up to Mt Sterling in bad weather.

    I woke up in the middle of night to a spectacular moon rise. I at first thought someone had come to camp and had a fire going. Due to needing to pee, I went out of my tent and saw it was the moon. There was an eerie feeling with the dark radio tower in the background.

    Mt Sterling tower

    Day 3 would be my longest hike. It ended up about 30 miles and a 16 hours day. I should have left camp in the wee 3 am hour when I woke up to pee in order to make it to camp in the daylight.

    I chose to sleep in till 5 am I think. By the time I was ready to leave it was 7 am. The morning was beautiful.

    I did not start the day well as the trail was still covered with dew. During the descend from Mt Sterling, I slipped couple times and one time I was on my hands and knees. Nothing seriously hurt but that experience scared me, especially while falling, my heavy pack pulled me in the direction of the fall I did not want to go. It was like a choke and a squash. I was squished and flattened like a pancake.

    I walked into a rainstorm again on the third day. I was wet then dry and then wet. I re-wore my wet clothes from the previous day and let my body and sun dry them.

    The whole trek on the third day was mostly ascend. By 2 pm my spirit and body was broken. Like in a marathon, you hit a wall and bonked. My legs refused to move, but I pushed myself on. Unless I move I wouldn’t make it to camp. There were like 15 more miles to go. I started having blisters on both feet due to the wet socks and the grits that got in. I had one pair of dry socks left and I decided to change into them. I thought it was a good decicion but just within an hour, it rained again. Still I believe fresh socks helped my feet.

    I made it to Tricorner Shelter at 7 pm. I stopped there for water only since the site was full of campers. My ultimate stopping point was at Pecks Corner which was 6 more miles away. Without a pack, I could run 6 miles in an hour but with a heavy pack and blisters on both feet, I was hoping get there by 11 pm.

    Night 3. at Tricorner Shelter, I refilled my water. Prepped for my dinner. The rain stopped/lightened off once I got started again. People at the shelter thought I was crazy to head out again with the storm just happened and night was about to fall. I had my headlamp on my head and my dinner in my hand as I set out.

    The night hike was uneventful. I made good speed after the rest at shelter. My feet didn’t bothered me that much. It was mostly downhills. There were some climbs. Then I saw Gatlinburg nightlight in the distance. My spirit was lifted. I was still 2 miles from the camp – an hour more to go.

    No one was at the Pecks Corner shelter when I arrived. I had it all to myself. At first I was worry being so late to shelter that I might not have a place to sleep and it was also not so nice to wake up everyone (since most people sleep when sun goes down). I was relief that I didn’t need to make any apologies.

    Day 4. My feet improved after a night of drying out. They were still tender from the blisters, I put on old wet socks. They were all wet. I tried to find a pair that seemed clean. I tried my best to descend from Pecks Corner as fast as I could. Day 4 hike was short. There were maybe 2 miles of descend. The rest 8 miles were mostly on flat trail – Bradley Fork Trail. I made it back to Smokemont by noon feeling pretty happy to have survived the trip.

    some photos from the trail

    oh and bears. I did saw some and all of them ran away from me. They were too quick for me to snap a photo of them. Cute animal.

  • Day342 wait for no one

    Time waits for no one. The weekend came and gone. I’m glad for it to have happened even though it was not something I planned and in fact I view most of family time as time away from training and that to me is bad! I was almost not there most of the time and that was kind of sad.

    I’m seemed as an ungrateful brat. It has been years since I took a trip with my family that of which is not running related.

    A lesson to be learned is to be still and enjoy the time to be with one’s own family!

    The time with your love ones are definitely precious and would not come again a second time.

    The trip was as perfect as it can get in term of time and location. I was just winding down a long series of training (GVRAT and GSER). As far as not being in convenience this is it. Location was not too far and not too near either.

    It was not the most beautiful place to go to but I would give 7/10 in term of pretty. All natural places are wonderful. I love having the campsite right by the lake and we could swim at any time. The water was warm and the lake is fresh (not swampy nor filled with mosquitoes). The sunset was nice. I caught the golden hour…one night and trees became golden, and the lake reflected the trees. Boom, we were immediately transposed to paradise.

    I think with any place, as long as the heart is at rest, you can see some amazing things. Sorry I didn’t take any photos.

    One night I watched the stars. It is beyond what words can describe of the stars out in the country side. We saw Jupiter. It was a good day to wind down.

    I have been running as much as I can during the day time (trying to still reach for GVRAT 1270 miles finish, so over the weekend I had to do 100 miles to reach thay goal. So all my waking hours was set for running.

    I ran a lot during the trip but nowhere near 100 miles, Total was around 50 miles. Also Friday and today I did not run much. More on that later. Basically I was only around during Breakfasts, Lunch, and Dinner. After the first day of putting in 33 miles I had blisters on my toes. One of them became infected. I am still limping from it. My mileage on subsequent days felt dramatically.

    The place was not the runner friendly place because the camp was tiny. All the roads in the camp only added up 0.4 miles. There were no trails.

    I ran out from the camp to civilization (Hwy 58) on the first day. That was about 3.5 miles. I spent the afternoon exploring all the parks and roads in area and that came up to about 30 miles. All roads are like single lane in the city undivided (meaning with no median or line) and also no pull off shoulder. If I run, I have to be on road. Yes it was very dangerous with cars flying by at 45 or more and it is about a foot from you! First day I was not scared but subsequent days it got to me.

    The second day was Sunday. We had a virtual Sunday Church worship (watched a video online). Then I spent the rest of the morning with the kids and to swim. After lunch I explored the forest there.

    This was an Corps of Enginneers Wildlife Management Area. I can see no one really go in there.

    The afternoon was hot and humid. I walked the first six miles, unable to get myself to run. My foot was hurting from pounding the pavement, and a bad blister festering on a toe (I didn’t know at the time). The body refused to move… Only after six miles it was able to run. Once it started moving, I enjoyed that tremendously. It was cooler by then. Evening was setting and I was rushing to get back for dinner. I did only 13 miles on the second day.

    The third day. I woke up with itchy feet. I actually couldn’t sleep much the night of. We had better weather too. The first night was stormy and water leaked into the tent (my fault of not setting it up properly).

    The second night I slept like a baby. The third night was hot and humid. I had my tent cover off, but still too hot to sleep. It was the itchiness that kept me awake.

    In the morning I checked my foot. Yup I got poison ivy somewhere during the weekend, probably in the Wildlife Management Area. I did crawl into some dense bushes and I saw some three-leave plants. Or there were times I stepped off the road into the shoulder and might have stepped into some poison ivy plants. Any way, the rest of the trip was very uncomfortable.

    The sun, humidity, itchiness, some mosquito bites, bad blisters, and poison ivy made my day.

    The whole trip was kind of weird in a way. There is definitely a lesson to be learned, like what if I didn’t run but have stayed in the camp and enjoyed like the rest? Then there would be no poison ivy?

    My mom said what if I just stayed at home wouldn’t I have my 100 miles then? Who know, it could have been worse.

    Time (or opportunity) comes and will be gone forever. While I went to the camp half-heartedly, there were some bright moments during the trip. My brother-in-law mentioned the trip to his team at work while on the way to camp but his whole team from work showed up too (uninvited) but it was quite fun. They liked him a lot (I guessed being almost six months only meeting online) and finally able to get together in person. Yes the 6-feet social distance is out the window. Spontanousness is what make a moment memorable. We made a lot of memories (we/they made a faux-pas, because they ‘partied’ allnight way after the 10 pm curfew hour, to the whole camp annoyance). There were no loud music though, just a guy refused to sleep due to the storm and just talking throughout the night. He set off his car alarm by accident too in the middle of the night. I had some good beer and food from them. The camp was supposed to be family friendly (meaning no alcohols)! It was a trip I won’t forget. The park probably won’t let us back though.

  • Duncan Knob

    Day 80

    I’m back from the weekend camping trip. It was a short stay. I got a little better at packing. The weather was warm, relatively speaking. It was a little bit above freezing through the trip and was quite comfortable.  There were three of us. I had my fun. We arrived a little late, I think 8:30 or 9:00 pm. (more…)