Day 13, Soco Creek to Balsam Gap/Moonshine Creek Campground

After the hiker left, Polecat and I finished packing, then backtracked to Howard's Bridge to collect and filter water. We were unsure if we'd be able to refill our water bottles at the visitor center at Waterrock Knob, which was less than three miles away.

The first 40 minutes of our hike remained in the shadow of a ridge to our left. The temperature wasn't as chilly as yesterday, and it gradually warmed when the sun began to dapple the trees.

We continued a climb that started yesterday when we left Soco Gap. The trail now took us up a long ridge extending to Waterrock Knob. That mountain and several nearby are the highest in the range called the Plott Balsams. They are named after a family of German immigrants who migrated to North Carolina in the late 1700s.

Between clumps of trees to my right, I could see where the Blue Ridge Parkway passed by Yellow Face, one of the five 6,000-foot peaks in the area.

For a moment, I thought of leaving the Mountains-to-Sea Trail to follow a side trail to the top of Waterrock Knob but couldn't tell if Polecat had gone that way. It was also difficult to know if the extra three-tenths of a mile was worth the effort. All I could see at the top were trees.

Besides, there was a view from where I stood and it seemed as good as what would be at the top. I could see the casino in Cherokee, which in a straight line was nine miles away. The building stood out against the surrounding mountains. The highest mountain on the ridge to the right was Clingman's Dome.

In The Southern Sixers, author Ron Tagliapietra says water from a spring runs over a smooth rock near the top of Waterrock Knob, which explains how the mountain got its name. Instead of continuing up the side trail to check this out, I stayed on the MST and descended to a parking lot at the Waterrock Knob Visitor Center. Polecat was there, sitting at a picnic table and eating a snack.

We then left the parking lot to continue the trail's long descent. The first of this section was steep, though steps cut into the trail made it less treacherous.

The trail ran parallel to the parkway, about 200 feet above the road. After going two miles from the visitor center, it dropped steeply again, this time with some switchbacks.

The next half-mile of the trail was on the parkway's pavement, which included a blind curve. Though traffic was light, I hoped the drivers weren't looking at the scenery instead of the road. To my surprise, two didn't just see me. They stopped to check on me.

The first was a woman in a van, who asked me if I wanted a snack bar. Moments later, another woman stopped to ask if I needed anything.

After leaving the road again, the trail returned to a footpath. A short distance later, Polecat and I stopped for water and lunch at Woodfin Creek. A footbridge crossed the creek where it steeply cascaded down a slope of Mount Lyn Lowry, another of the Plott Balsam's 6,000-foot mountains.

Originally known as Jones Knob, the mountain's name was changed in 1965 to remember a 15-year-old girl who died of leukemia. North Carolina has another Jones Knob, and Polecat and I climbed that during our thru-hike of the Bartram Trail.

Tagliapietra says an owner of this Jones Knob, whose first name is not given, tried to claim his mountain was higher than Clingman's Dome or Mt. Mitchell. That would have made it the highest peak in the eastern half of the U.S. The U.S. Geological Survey settled the dispute by measuring Mt. Mitchell to be taller. That led some people to call Jones's mountain Jones Folly.

Arnold Guyot, the Swiss-born geographer who measured many of the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, tried to call the mountain Mt. Junaluska, in honor of a local Cherokee warrior chief. That name didn't stick.

Soon after leaving the creek and bridge, the trail began following a gravel road called Greenspire Drive. This was a dull section, but it only lasted about two miles. Then after crossing a scenic overlook, the trail returned to the parkway.

The next section of road walking was less than a mile long but included another blind curve. To be seen by on-coming traffic, we walked on the wrong side of the road.

I almost missed where the MST left the parkway. I might have walked by it if I hadn't wondered what happened to Polecat when I noticed he wasn't on the road ahead. Then I looked to my right and saw a short post with a round MST blaze. The trail turned there to follow another footpath.

I found Polecat waiting for me at Balsam Gap.

When we planned for this part of the Appalachian High Route, we discovered a complication. Food must stored in bear canisters when backpacking in Middle Prong Wilderness, less than 30 miles away. We may have disregarded the regulation about camping on the parkway, but we weren't going to ignore this one.

Needing a place to mail and pick up our canisters, we found two options at Balsam Gap. One was a U.S. Post Office near the parkway. The second option, and the one we chose, was Moonshine Creek Campground. This one had the added benefit of providing somewhere to camp overnight.

There was a slight complication, however. The campground wasn't scheduled to open until April 15, and we planned to start our hike before then. The solution was to ask our wives to mail the canisters for us.

The campground was 2.2 miles from the parkway, and getting there required walking on narrow roads. The route went downhill nearly the whole way. Polecat and I agreed we'd try to get a ride tomorrow to avoid walking back to the trail.

Walking to the campground was bad enough. Returning with a load of food and the added weight of a bear canister would be an excruciating way to start the day.

A campground employee named Barb checked us in when we arrived. She then directed us to where the boxes our wives had mailed were stored.

We didn't have to press Barb for a ride back to the trail tomorrow. When we asked, she immediately volunteered her husband Mitch for that task.

The campground turned out to be a lovely place to stay. Although it was mostly configured for large RVs, a small number of tenting spaces with gravel pads were available, and they were located on Moonshine Creek. Electricity and water were provided, and a shower room was nearby. Our site even had two rocking chairs on a small platform overlooking the creek.

Although we could have washed our clothes here, we decided there was no need. We just did that two days ago in Cherokee. Instead, we used the time to call our wives. I also checked in with my older son Logan, who plans to join us this weekend for a section of the trail.