McAfee Knob / Tinker Cliffs

We sat in Mill Mountain Coffee on Saturday morning, waiting for the rain to stop. I have to admit, I was second-guessing our hike. I could spend the afternoon in a hotel room or sports bar, eating nachos and watching football. Ah, that would be nice.

We (reluctantly) headed out in a lull in the rain. Everything was wet. After a few miles, we were atop a knoll, getting pelted by rain, listening to the powerlines buzz above us. Not exactly the soothing weekend hike I was hoping for. But lucky for us, that would be the worst of it.

We had lunch under a graffiti-covered rock. It turned out to be a historic moment, as this is where The Big Pastrami got his trail name. (You should have seen his sandwich!) It was an uphill day. If we weren’t wet from the rain, it was the sweat.

We hiked almost 10 miles on the day, and got to our shelter at about 3:30. I immediately sprawled out, enjoying the “comfort” of a thermarest and a roof. But the shelter filled up quickly, leaving some poor thru-hikers to tent in the rain. Knowing I could dry off at home the next night, I decided to tent out and give them my space. But the thru-hikers had a bit of the “thru-hiker entitlement” attitude. Without even a thank you for giving up our shelter space, they just seemed annoyed that it took us so long to move our stuff. It turns out they had spent 2 nights in Daleville, and were headed into Catawba. They had showered more recently than I had! If I had known all that, I probably would have kept my space in the shelter.

Before we could leave the shelter area on Sunday morning, we could see patches of blue sky overhead. It was less than a mile up to Tinker Cliffs, one of the coolest places on the Appalachian Trail. We enjoyed the view for about a half hour. I explored a little while the coffee-drinkers drank their coffee.

The hike between Tinker Cliffs and McAfee Knob was kind of fun, as I don’t remember much about this section. We got to the shelter just before McAfee Knob, and stopped for lunch. We found a strange Alaskan fellow who had started at Dragon’s Tooth, and was headed to Mt. Rogers. We informed him that he had been hiking in the wrong direction. He just replied matter-of-factly, “Hmm. Then maybe I’ll hike into town and buy some maps.”

McAfee Knob was pretty, but a bit more crowded. It was fun to look back at the 12 mile, zig-zagging ridgeline we had been following. I was surprised that the famous picture was so overgrown with trees, and that you couldn’t even tell that the rocks jutted out. There were a lot of tourists and kids there, taking us out of “backpacker” mode, and into “seagull” mode. And 4 easy, crowded miles brought us back down to the parking lot, and back into reality.

This morning one of my fellow carpoolers asked me, “So, you mean you literally hiked and camped in the rain?” The tiniest bit of adrenaline shot through my body. It’s been a while since I’ve been asked that question.

See pictures of our hike here