Seven Days on the Appalachian Trail, Day 6: sunshine, hornets, people

[To see the original journal entries recorded during this leg of our adventure, click here! But this post has all the photos.]

The trail curves through a field of tall, dry grass with low mountains in the distance. Dustin and Laura stand at the far bend of the trail, both looking through their cameras into the distance. — (Photo credit: Hobz)

Our hostel host dropped us back at the trailhead (TN91, if anyone is keeping track) around 8:30am, and we set off across the first (and only) unshaded meadow we’ve encountered on this trip.

Laura hikes away from the camera through a grassy field toward a plank building with a large AT painted on the side.

Laura continues hiking toward the building with AT painted on its side. Hobz follows behind at a distance. — There’s something oddly encouraging about seeing the AT logo painted on random private buildings, like the farmer is cheering you on.

Dustin stands on the edge of a grassy field, bottom right of the frame, with rows of mountains becoming more faded with distance in the background. The sun is visible at the top right of frame, lighting the field and leaving Dustin in shadow. — This is the first time we’ve gotten one of those Smoky Mountains-style views with the peaks-of-diminishing-clarity in the background. It wasn’t a particularly grand view, but it was lovely.

Looking over a weedy fence to where a barn sits in a field down a hill. The barn is surrounded by green trees.

Hobz poses on top of a boulder, walking stick in one hand, other hand held up to shield his eyes as he looks toward the left of the frame. — *I hereby submit these photos as Hobz’s Official Professional Trail Guide Headshots.*

Hobz poses on top of a boulder, holding his walking stick in his right hand, left hand on his hip, smiling at the camera. — *I hereby submit these photos as Hobz’s Official Professional Trail Guide Headshots.*

The sun was already hot, so while the change of scenery was pleasant, I wasn’t sorry to see the dark, shady tree-line coming back into view.

At the bottom of the frame, Laura followed by Hobz follows the trail across a grassy meadow. The trail disappears into dark trees at the top of the frame. — Here comes the forest again. Whew.

A trail winds between trees with patches of white lichen on their trunks. — Hello, forest.

Our hike today was incredibly laid-back. Well, except for how I forgot to refill my water before we left the hostel on a day with maybe no opportunities to refill so that we had to skim water off the top of a stagnant spring, and those two times we walked past hornet nests.

You can see the hornet nest in the photo on the left (barely – top right corner), but it’s much more impressive in the closeup on the right.
(Hornet nest closeup photo credit: Hobz)
[Alt text: Hobz, bottom left of the photo, faces away from the camera and holds up his right hand with thumb and pinky extended. In the top right of the photo, you can see a small point that is a hornet nest. Right photo is a closeup of the spherical paper hornet nest.]

The first hornet nest was visible before we got there, so that Hobz (new trail name: Hornet Bait) could work his superpowers (born of all the hornet venom he’s absorbed already on this trip) on them and persuade them to leave us alone.

The second time, the nest was fiendish-sneaky, and we had a repeat performance of Day 3’s “OWW!! OW! RUN RUN RUN!!” event, wherein Hobz got all the stings and Dustin had to bushwhack a detour to avoid the same fate.

Hobz, with his back to the camera, faces Dustin who is farther back along the trail. A white, rectangular blaze is painted on the tree closest to the camera. — Hobz attempts to coach Dustin past the hornet nest.

Dustin, far away from the camera and centered in the frame, can be seen picking his way through the underbrush. The trail passes along the right side of the photo. — He’s probably just wading through poison ivy instead of hornets.
(Photo credit: Hobz)

Close up of the hole in the ground that contained the paper hornet nest. Hornets can be seen crawling on its surface. — Jamie: I can vouch for the use of Hobz’s zoom in acquiring this photo. He was not actually close enough to just take this shot. Even HE didn’t have enough hornet venom addling his brain for that.
(Photo credit: Hobz)

There was also that one extremely giant, carnivorous mushroom we walked past. I’ve been trying to save most of my mushrooms for photo-candy at the end, but this one was just SO COOL.

Vertical photo. At center bottom is an extremely large cluster of shelf mushrooms, apparently growing straight out of the ground. In the background, Laura looms above the mushroom, slightly out of focus, holding her camera and looking delighted. — Hello, freaking gigantic mystery mushroom!

A top-down view of the large shelf mushroom. It is tan colored with many ruffle-edged lobes. — Please note the size of my boot in this photo. You might also notice that where ferns have touched this mushroom, they appear to have died. Or, perhaps, are in the process of being CONSUMED BY THE MUSHROOM. Also that bug.

A photo taken from underneath the shelf mushroom. The edge of the mushroom's underside (porous rather than gilled) fills the top half of the frame. In the bottom half of the frame, Laura peers down while Hobz looks over her shoulder. — Having learned from my friend, the Mushroom Commie, that the undersides of mushrooms are just as important for their identification, I went for a dive. Mmm, spongy pores!

A five-minute google search reveals that this mushroom is probably a bondarzewia berkeleyi, and that it is probably not actually carnivorous. In fact, in response to the question “is it edible?”, the internet notes: “Although Bondarzewia berkeleyi has been compared to eating shoe leather, some field guides list it as edible.”

I will not be doing any first-hand research.

Hobz, followed by Dustin, walk along the forested trail toward the camera. — Pleasant hiking, la-de-da.

Around our now-typical seven-“mile” marker, we stopped for lunch at a spot where the AT crosses a small highway. A shady pull-off even featured a picnic table, which was a serious lunchtime luxury.

A stone picnic table sits at center. Dustin sits on the bench farther from the camera while Laura stands on the left end of the table, sorting through packages of food for lunch. Both are looking at the camera. — Feasting like kings: on a table!
(Photo credit: Hobz)

The best luxury of all, though, was the cold little spring that ran right by the road. The flow was not fast, but it was regular, and cold, and that water looked really, really clean.

A top-down photo of a circle of moss-covered rocks surrounding a patch of mud. At the top of the frame, water drips into the mud from a moss-covered ledge.

Hobz crouches by the mud patch to catch the dripping water in his filter bag.

We chucked the stagnant pond water and started over. Saved from my own stupidity through no credit of my own!

Onward we trekked, up and down several more mountains. Okay, possibly not several, but we did at least as much elevation gain and loss today and we had done on the first day, and my little hummingbird heart hardly even minded. If this is how much easier hiking gets after just six days, I can only imagine the wonders several months work on a body.

A log lean-to fills the frame. There are large gaps between each log and it appears to be listing to the left. Hobz pushes on the right side of the shelter, his feet braced as if making a huge effort, appearing to be responsible for the shelter's tilt. — This is McQueen’s Knob Shelter. The trail guides strongly advise that you not sleep in McQueen’s Knob Shelter. We elected to move on to the Abingdon Gap Shelter. Not because Hobz knocked this one over, either, though if he’d tried just a little harder, I’m convinced he could have.

And so we arrived at Abingdon Gap Shelter, finally catching up with the plan from our original itinerary on the last night of our trip.

A three-sided shelter at center with a picnic table in front. Sleeping bags are laid out on the platform inside the shelter. Hobz sits on the left side of the platform. Dustin sits at the picnic table, his back to the camera. The picnic table is covered with gear and food.

Dustin volunteered to go down the steep, nasty hill for a water resupply (possibly the last one available on our trip), so I made camp.

Close up shot of two sleeping bags laid out on the shelter platform, on top of a tent footprint being used like a tarp. — Them’s some sexy sleeping arrangements.

I also got to eyeing the fire ring, and got to thinking maybe we deserved a camp fire on our last night out on the trail. Turns out Hobz is a Fire Master. I wandered around picking up tiny sticks and came back to discover him dismembering an entire downed tree he found behind the shelter.

Close up of a stone-ringed fire circle. A stack of broken sticks has been set up in the shape of a hashmark several layers tall. A hand belonging to Hobz is adding another stick to the pile. — He also taught me how to make a log cabin fire-starting setup.

Hobz leans over the stone-ringed fire circle, body turned away from the camera, head close to the pile of sticks. Smoke rises from the sticks and a very small bit of orange flame can be seen between them. A picnic table covered in water bottles and cooking supplies is in the background. — He’s a fire-builder and bellows, all in one!

A fire with tall orange flames burns at the center of a stone-ringed fire circle. A log that could be used as a bench sits behind the circle. — Is that a beautiful fire, or what?

Another first for the evening was the company that joined us. A couple had been at the shelter before we arrived, but moved off to set up their tent a bit farther up the hill. Not long after, Hashtag and his dog Dozer* rolled in. They also elected to set up a tent (well, Dozer didn’t elect anything – he was down for sleeping any ol’ where), but they joined us for dinner and fireside festivities.

* this name may have been made up due to lack of proper remembering.

Hobz sits on the left side of the frame at the picnic table, Dustin standing to his right, and a white-haired stranger named Hashtag sits opposite Hobz, on the right of the frame. A yellow dog lays at Hashtag's feet. The fire circle with the fire burning inside it is in front of the picnic table, at the bottom of the frame. The shelter is in the background. — Here’s a service I had no idea trail guides provided: absorbing the enthusiastic conversation of extroverted strangers. Cheers, Hobz!

Eventually, we let the fire die out and put ourselves to bed. The tiny mouse that lives in the shelter was not as polite as her entry in the log-book implied. She did not go to bed at hiker midnight (9am) at all, and so I laid awake and listened to her scuttling about for far too long into the night.