#208 Kinsmans Notch to Eliza Brook Shelter Day 129: MM1803.6 - MM1811.1
This year’s hike is about to get fun…..
9-6-2024
I walk into the common area of the hostel’s main house to grab a cup of coffee from the pot to have with my leftover turkey sandwich half from last night, which I pull from the refrigerator.
Steady Eddie is playing Cards Against Humanity with a couple of hikers who are taking a zero day, as demonstrated by their breakfast beverage of choice - a case Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.
Laughter fills the room by everyone playing and observing the game.
Steady Eddie and I catch the seven-a.m. shuttle to Kinsman Notch where we will continue our northward trek.
Our driver ran a hostel in Erwin, TN years ago but now helps out at other hostels up and down the trail. She’s bound to pop up anywhere.
We began talking about Erwin history, and someone asks her about the story of hanging of Mary the Elephant, later dubbed Murderous Mary.
She told us that her when her grandmother was a child, she witnessed the hanging of the elephant. The story our driver grew up hearing was how a homeless man was hired by Sparks World Famous Shows as an elephant trainer, though he had no experience training elephants was mauled to death. Some think he provoked and mistreated the elephant, but who knows.
As we drive along the winding and foggy mountain road, our driver continued on with the darker part of the story, the part when the circus owner Charlie Sparks was trying to hide from the broader public.
The first hanging failed due to a weak cable. Mary dropped to the ground and dislocated her hip. As she laid there screaming in fear and pain and bunch of onlookers started shooting her hoping to put her out of her misery. That attempt failed.
A stronger cable was used on a second attempt, which did hold, but it took a long time for Mary to die.
This was the account we were told. It’s a horrific story to start our day.
Kinsmans Notch is foggy, cool, and damp. We climb out of the van with eager anticipation of hiking up and over the steep mountain and the rugged ridgeline beyond.
As is custom when hiking up long steep climbs, I play music through my earbuds for a mental distraction. Steady Eddie and I start together, but he, being a thru-hiker and twenty years younger, outpaces me.
Slowly trudging upward, climbing above the cold dank fog of the valley into hints of sunlight, I find Steady Eddie sitting on his pack taking a break.
I stop to shed my windbreaker jacket, but I don’t stop for long. I’d rather power through than to stop, have my muscles cool off, and then struggle through the restarting process, having to power through anyway.
Coming down some of these peaks across the ridge is like working your way through a wilderness jungle gym of roots, rocks, and small trees - holding on for dear life to anything sturdy, like the very roots, rocks, and small trees that are making the descents difficult.
Occasionally there’s a flat area with marshes and pines where I fully expect to see a moose strolling about knee deep in the water, but never do.
High above the cloudy valley floor the sun begins shining bright. I hike up and down repetitiously across the ridge, ever in an upward trajectory, with occasional glimpses of the tops of the low-lying clouds, glad to have climbed out of that dark world into this one.
On Wolf Mountain, the highest point of the day, I see a wooden sign painted white, with a chunk broken off from the top right-hand corner. In black paint it reads, “Overlook” with an arow pointing right. Below the arrow someone had written “Lame” with a Sharpie.
That message was enough to deter me from checking it out. Who wants to see a lame overlook when there have been and will be so many spectacular views on this hike.
It’s a somewhat steady run from Wolf Mountain to Eliza Shelter, about a thousand-foot drop over nearly four miles. Much gentler than my first climb this morning, though ever rocky and full roots.
Steady Eddy comes into the Elize Brook Shelter camp area shortly after me but doesn’t plan to stay long. How did I beat him here, you ask? He hikes hard but takes more breaks, something I’ve noticed with thru-hikers over the years.
Me, hiking steadier than Eddie, believe that slow is steady, and steady is fast, but Steady Sprawl has no poetic flow to it, so he gets to keep the name.
He’s aiming for Kinsman Pond Shelter beyond the peaks of South and North Mountains. Across from the large rushing stream begins a steep two-thousand-foot climb up South Kinsman Mountain.
I think I’ll save that one for tomorrow.
I’m getting stronger but still looking for my trail legs - when my legs and body won’t be affected by pack weight or terrain but can swiftly move along the trail. It takes more than a month for them to kick in for the average hiker, I’ve been out here for just over a week.
Steady Eddy digs food from his pack while I hang a line between two trees to air out my hiking clothes, since I’ve gone as far as I’m going to go today, and have put on my camp clothes, though it’s relatively early in the afternoon. How can anyone pass up such a beautiful place to pitch a tent?
