Day 36

Origin: Overmountain Shelter
Destination: US 19E
Today's miles: 8.7
Total miles: 392.6

Balds are much-loved by most hikers. The grassy expanses provide a welcomed contrast to the seemingly endless corridor of trees and provide fantastic views. Today, however, we hated the grassy bald.

With bad weather forecast for the afternoon, Magge and I wanted to get our short day out of the way quickly. We left early and immediately had a climb up a bald. I wrote yesterday that the wind was bad - I didn't know what bad was. Today, the wind was bad. Really bad. We struggled up the climb as we were battered from the side and were knocked off the trail a few times. The climb didn't last too long before the trail dipped into the woods and we were protected from the wind. I laughed about how my legs were already sapped but that I was ready to keep going.

However, 15 minutes later we were back on a bald and this time there were no trees in sight. We slowly climbed up Little Hump, desperately fighting the wind the whole way. At times I was knocked three feet or more off the trail. At other times we just had to stop and dig in our heels to prevent ourselves from getting knocked over. Most of the time, though, we had to lean into the wind as we walked just to make sure we could make forward progress.

Finally, we reached the summit and were able to get back into the woods. I thought we were done with walking on these exposed areas and I allowed myself to relax, but we soon popped out of the forest again and this time the wind seemed worse than ever. We had another climb, and by the time we started to descend, the wind was in our face. Even though we were headed downhill, we still had to work hard just to move forward. It was so foggy that we couldn't see more than 30 yards or so ahead and we had no idea how much farther we had to go. At some point, I screamed, "Get me off of this [expletive] bald!". A few minutes later we came up behind a woman who had to turn around to steady herself and she let out a shrieking, "[EXXXXXPLEEEEETIVE]!". There was a long blue streak across the Roan Highlands today. Mercifully, we entered the woods for good, and 2,000 ft lower the weather was fine.

Today's winds were the highest I've ever been in. A hiker later told us that they were 60 mph and greater and that the windchill was in the lower 20s. The hiking today was without a doubt the toughest we've had on the whole trip - tougher than the steepest climbs, rockiest declines and everything in between. We are exhausted. But you know what? Looking back, today was awesome.