NC/TN Appalachian Trail - Section 8 - Hughes Gap to Iron Mountain Gap

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
3/20/2022	9.8 miles	5 hours 7 minutes	1,741'	2.1 mph	182.2

Parking: 

• One car at Hughes Gap, one car at Iron Mountain Gap

Maps:

• FarOut app (Guthook)
• Appalachian Trail Conservancy Tennessee-North Carolina Maps 1 & 2

Directions:

• Hike southbound on AT from Hughes Gap to Iron Mountain Gap

Another AT section today. My goal is to finish both North Carolina and Tennessee this year, so I'm starting to plan how to do that. On the drive up, we saw the tops of mountains (Roan Mountain area) covered in rime ice. 

After being very warm hiking in just a long sleeve shirt yesterday, today's windy weather was challenging. We were at a higher altitude, and it was 40 degrees, but the strong winds made it bitter cold. I actually saw someone hiking in Mountain Hardware puffy pants! I want to get synthetic puffy pants for backpacking, because I'm always so cold at night. They look ridiculous, but I don't care!

I put on most of my layers. Then after we hiked around the other side of the mountain it warmed up. And then bitter cold again. We stopped over and over again to adjust layers. Mittens on, mittens off. Gloves on, gloves off, Jacket on, jacket off. Puffy on, puffy off. We saw a lot of backpackers today - some of the men even in shorts. I don't know how they do it.

We hiked up Little Rock Knob. It did have pretty rime ice at the summit. The ice on the trees was actually raining down on us due to the strong winds. There's a nice lookout just beyond the summit. We saw a few wildflowers today, but not much. They come out later at this altitude. Near the end of the hike, we passed through a short meadow. Based on a sign we saw later, I gather that this is an old apple orchard. This was a moderate hike with lots of small ups and downs.

Checking out a hole in a tree

Pieces of rime ice were blowing off the trees onto the moss

Waiting for Glen