Day 3, Piped Spring at Low Gap to Shelton Gravesite

Polecat and I were on trail by 7:40 a.m. Not surprisingly, the trail was muddy. There were a few puddles as well, but mostly, the trail drained as it was supposed to do.

The only obstacles to deal with were downed trees. There weren't many, and they looked like they had fallen recently. Yesterday's storm didn't bring a lot of wind, but the ground was saturated, which was likely the reason they toppled over.

From our campsite near Low Gap, we followed the trail along a ridge. Clouds were formed above and below us. The elevation where we walked was between the cloud layers.

When clouds hit the ridge, they rose to the top but never seemed to pour over to the other side.

The low clouds were on the Tennessee side of the ridge and not the North Carolina side. This part of the AT closely followed the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee. It wiggled back and forth between the two states, and it was never possible to tell which state I was in unless I checked the map. I just knew that Tennessee was on my right and North Carolina was on my left.

I fell behind Polecat because I stopped several times to take photos of clouds. It wasn't until the trail crossed a meadow that I saw him ahead of me. I hadn't realized until then he was nearby because the trail zigzagged so much.

When I hiked this section in 2017, I met a trial volunteer who was working on this section. His name was Rocko, and he was a member of the Carolina Mountain Club. I could see he took tremendous pride in his work because the trail was in wonderful shape. It also looked beautiful today, and I wondered if he was still the maintainer.

As I got closer to Sam's Gap, I began to see a stream of thru-hikers heading northbound, and of course, I stopped to talk to more than one. Some told me they stayed last night at Nature's Inn Hostel & Cabins, and like the first hikers I saw yesterday, they were slackpacking. Most of the others had come from Hogback Ridge Shelter.

The gap came into view at 9:30 a.m., and it only took a couple more minutes to reach the bottom.

Rain started to fall as soon as I began a climb that went up Hogback Ridge and to a shelter with the same name. I hoped the rain would continue to fall lightly until I got to the shelter. It would be easier to put on my rain gear there. Unfortunately, the rainfall soon became heavier, and I had to stop.

One of the most miserable evenings I spent on my 2017 thru-hike was at this shelter. The weather had turned cold and rainy during the afternoon, and by the time I got here, I was close to getting hypothermia.

Today wasn't nearly as bad because the temperature wasn't as chilly. I was also grateful I didn't need to get any water yet because I remembered the closest water source was a quarter-mile off the trail.

I ate a snack at the shelter. Then as I prepared to leave, I looked for my lip balm. It was nowhere to be found, and I realized I must have lost it.

After taking no more than a few steps to leave, I stopped because I remembered my sunglasses should have been in the same place I kept the lip balm. A quick check proved they were gone too.

Rain was still falling and low clouds were settling in on Hogback Ridge when I returned to the trail, .

More hikers passed me along the way. The weather was becoming too wet to comfortably stop and chat. Besides, if Polecat and I were to get back some of the mileage we lost yesterday, I didn't want long conversations to delay me.

At the end of the ridge, the trail dropped to Rice Gap before climbing to another ridge. On the other side of the second ridge, the trail followed a series of switchbacks. I instantly remembered hiking this section, though I was going in the other direction in 2017. As it was then, the forest floor was carpeted in green. That day was about as rainy as today, making the foliage strikingly rich in color.

I remembered seeing many wildflowers that day, like False Solomon's seal and May apple. The flowers that I noticed today were squirrel corn, though I thought at first they were Dutchman's breeches. My plant identification app correctly identified them for me.

Both varieties look similar and usually bloom in similar conditions. Squirrel corn gets its name from an oddly shaped flower in a heart-shaped cluster that somewhat resembles kernels of corn.

I stopped to collect and filter water from a cascade on Sugarloaf Branch before continuing the descent. In all, the trail dropped from the highest point of the day at 4,600 feet to the lowest, 3,050 feet, in less than three miles.

The bottom of the descent was where the trail crossed Rector Laurel Road. Another climb began from there. This was a short climb to where the trail crossed a fence at a stile. It then followed Locust Ridge for about a mile.

Despite the long climbs and descents, Polecat and I were hiking at a better pace today, which allowed us to make up miles from yesterday, It helped that the trail didn't continue on the ridge and up to the top of Flint Mountain. Instead, it went along the mountain's slope.

Flint Mountain Shelter was on this slope, and when Polecat and I got there, we found fewer hikers than we saw yesterday at Bald Mountain Shelter. The time was close to 4 p.m. when we arrived, and I expected to see many more thru-hikers by that time.

The rain never let up this afternoon, though it wasn't falling as heavy as yesterday. The temperature didn't feel quite as cold, either. Still, Polecat and I never wanted to stop for lunch. We didn't stop to eat until we got to the shelter.

While we were there, Polecat remembered he had some Minute Rice in his food bag and gave me some to put in a bag with my phone. If my phone wasn't charging because it was wet, the rice might dry it out.

We also discussed how much farther we wanted to walk today. I suggested looking for a spot near the Shelton graves because the area was mostly flat. The site was about three miles away.

After we left the shelter, the rain began to fall heavy for the first time today, though it didn't continue that way for long. By the time we stopped to collect water, about a quarter-mile from the gravesite, the rain had stopped.

The gravesite was the final resting place for two Civil War deserters, David Shelton, Jr., and his nephew, William Shelton. A headstone for a 13-year-old boy named Millard Haire stood between them.

When we arrived there, we pitched our tents about as far as we could from the headstones. Perhaps we did that out of respect, but I must admit this spot was starting to feel spooky. As the sun began to sink, fog settled in and around the site.

The air was turning cold, and I wondered if the temperature would drop below freezing tonight.

After setting up my tent, I checked my phone to see if the rice Polecat gave me had dried it out. It still wouldn't charge when I connected it to my power bank. Then I remembered having similar trouble with my phone on my 2017 thru-hike. The problem then wasn't rain, it was dirt. I tried the same thing that fixed my phone then, which was to clean out the inside of the USB port. After removing a little lint, the phone worked as it should when I plugged in the battery.

I don't know why I didn't think to do that last night.

Before going to bed, I walked over to the headstones and stood there for a moment. The two deserters and the boy who are buried here were ambushed by Confederate soldiers early in the morning of July 19, 1864. Two other men were also killed that day and are probably buried somewhere nearby, but nobody knows where.

I told the story of that horrific day when I wrote about hiking past here in 2017. I won't retell the whole story now, but I think it is sobering and important enough to know about.

As I stood at the three graves, I thought about the Civil War and how most of our understanding of it comes from battles where hundreds, even thousands of men died. Stories like the ambush here in 1864 rarely get a mention in history books.

Many people don't realize that nearly all of the mountain folk in this part of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina weren't wealthy enough to own slaves. They could barely maintain a stable life for themselves and their families. They didn't go to war. The war came to them and they were expected to fight in it, often against their will. Certainly, it was against their interests.

The men and the boy who died here wanted no part of the war. Their tragic story should be told.