The Roan Mountains

At the top of Hump Mountain, 5,587'

After a night of festivities celebrating the new year, I awoke early on the first day of a fresh new year and started off on a journey.  For this trip, I traveled about 6 hours south of Cincinnati to the Roan Highlands along the Tennessee/North Carolina boarder to do a 5 day through hike along the Appalachian Trail with some of the awesome crew from my work, Roads, Rivers and Trails.  

To be honest, this trip both excited me after my flop in the White Mountains and scared me due to the fact I would be hiking with some Appalachian Trail thru hikers, and a guy who had attempted the Continental Divide Trail...  After a cold night at the Roan Mountain Hostel, we set off on the trail the morning of the 2nd under beautiful blue skies destined for the summit of Hump Mountain and camp at Over Mountain Shelter along the Appalachian Trail.

RRT Crew Atop Hump Mountain

After just a short time on the trail and a long uphill, we broke tree-line.  We took lunch and then set off for the top, quickly making the summit.  I had forgotten that such views existed on the East Coast after being spoiled with my travels in the Rockies.  

Our cozy abode at Over Mountain

We snapped a few photos, soaked up the sun and set off to finish our 9 miles for the day.  We arrived at Over Mountain and tucked in up in the attic for a cold night, everyone enjoyed a short reprieve from the trail.  In the morning we tore down camp, packed our bags and set off for the highest point of the trip, Roan Mountain.  Throughout the day we crossed Jane and Round Balds, took in the views and started looking at the weather for the night ahead.  Knowing it was going to get down to the negatives overnight with windchills close to -30 degrees that wouldn't go away for several days, we decided we would spend the night up top at Roan Mountain Shelter and then come back down in the morning for a ride out.

Joe heading up Roan Mountain

The trail heading up Roan High Knob was icy and treacherous but we had some of the best weather of the day.  Myself, Joe and Will (A.K.A Leapfrog) lead the front of the group up the mountain.  We watched our steps as we crossed ice patches and thought of the cold night ahead.  We reached the top, setup camp, warmed up by a fire, called our ride for the morning and did everything else there and in-between we needed to do to stay warm for the night.  As we tucked in for night in the old fire warden's cabin Joe read us stories of his time on the AT heading south bound years ago, traveling the very section of trail we had that day.  It both kept me warm with good laughs and happy thoughts as well as got me thinking about my own possible future adventures.  We all drifted off to sleep and woke up in the morning to howling wind and light snowfall knowing we had to get down to our ride.  We bundled up and hurried down the mountain racing away from the storm.  Once we arrived at Carver's Gap, and loaded the trucks up we were quickly heading the rest of the way down the mountain.  During the ride I thought of how successful this trip had been after my flop in the Whites and how nice it had been to be on a trip I hadn't planned.  Coming out of this trip I found yet another fun group of people to travel with, I found a new destination to show people and best of all I got an invite from Will to travel the Pacific Crest Trail with him in 2021 after he graduates college.  Roan was an amazing adventure and I look forward to many more like it with RRT!

Squanto and Leapfrog

"The wilderness and

the idea of

wilderness is one of

the permanent

homes of the human

spirit."​
​-Joseph Wood Krutch