Dealing with Helene’s detour

Our 2 night stay at Uncle Johnny’s house wasn’t necessarily planned. Rather, they convinced us to take a zero at Erwin’s to hang out with our new friends. Our first night was a wonderfully restful stay in a private room. We had handled most of the logistics and resupply on our trip to the city.

Jessie missed rock climbing, so she climbed at Erwin’s playground.

On our second day, we had many more opportunities to rest and relax. We took the early shuttle into town and enjoyed a nice breakfast in the cafe.

Cars had to line up behind us as we entered through the window of the Pal.

We spent most of the day wandering around the city, eating at different restaurants and walking along Pal’s path. We must have had Bojangles 3 times and Pal’s twice over the course of a six hour period. Not to mention a lovely place for focaccia somewhere in between.

Chipper eating his food at the Pal’s window.

We ended up in town buying Jessie a proper anklet from Walgreens and doing some last minute shopping. We had planned to have a home-cooked family dinner in Uncle Johnny’s kitchen.

Family dinner in Uncle Johnny’s kitchen. (From left to right, Jessie, Chipper, Big Dripper and Salamander).

Cooking at home really just meant heating up a Stover lasagna and making a salad while Big Dripper and Chipper ordered pizzas. It was a lovely time.

All the hikers and backpacks crammed into the back of a van.

Taking off from Erwin was a little strange as we hopped on a ferry to go around the bridge that was destroyed by Hurricane Helene. The van was packed with hikers and backpacks, which made the 10-minute drive quite uncomfortable. When we got to the other side of the river, we all performed our own gymnastics routine as we flew out of the van.

Uncle Johnny is seen from the other side of the broken bridge.

It was pretty fun to regain my bearings and see Uncle Johnny across the water. In the van it felt like a tough test to travel just the width of the river. We had joked about fording the river the day before and honestly, it might have been easier than some of the contortions required to accommodate us all.

The trail at the beginning of the day. Absolutely lush with rhododendrons.

Today’s hike was a 13 mile climb to a tent on Unaka Mountain. It started off beautifully with lots of rhododendrons and streams lining the trail. Things got a little worse as the sun started to rise more. We had ventured into a large hurricane-affected area where most of the canopy had been torn away.

The view from Beauty Spot.

The heat and sunlight were a little harsh, but the reward at the top of Beauty Spot was worth it. I think we must have sat there for about an hour eating snacks, chatting, and taking in the view with Chipper and our new friend Squirrel.

Overall, the climb was easier than anticipated, but the heat was sapping energy. From there it was only a short climb to the camp.

Everyone sitting in the camp. (Clockwise, Big Dripper, Chipper, Dancer, Squirrel and Jessie)

This was one of our favorite places to camp so far. The pine trees formed a soft bed of needles and created a wonderful open atmosphere for lots of people to set up camp. Almost everyone who was in the van with us ended up at the campsite. We ended up having a nice group dinner, chatting until the sun almost set. It was too cold to stay outside much longer.

Chipper, absolutely ready to walk in his new jorts.

The next morning we were preparing for the Helene detour. We had heard from people ahead of us on the trail that it was a pretty abysmal stretch of trail. Excitement wasn’t really the word I would use to describe the energy around the camp.

Seriously, he loved jorts. (And everyone else did too.)

That was until Chipper came out of his tent incredibly excited to walk around in his jorts that he had picked up in town. After taking some photos, we set off to start the day. Once again, it started out great until we got to some of the severely damaged areas.

It’s not the best image, but it gives you an idea of ​​the scale of the trees that were felled in the area.

Honestly, the amount of purging was incomprehensible. I have never seen so many trees down in one area, even having been through a wildfire in Yosemite before. Helene’s damage was EXTENSIVE and it was starting to make a lot of sense why they closed the trail. The sections that were reopened were truly impressive, as the path wound through a large number of cut trees and excavated root systems. The work they had done so far was truly incredible.

Jessie walking along the stretch of road at the detour.

The detour took us to a gravel road that eventually turned to asphalt. It didn’t start too bad. Maybe just a little monotonous and harder on the feet. But the truly cruel segment was the stairs they put in to connect the two paths.

The photo does a terrible job of showing how steep these steps actually were.

These stairs were to have a gradient of 1,100 feet per mile. My calves were getting so tight I was afraid they would break. I could only feel relief as we reached the top, only to discover that we had to go back down the same slope. It was a pretty scary segment of trail with a high risk of injury.

When he finished we started going up a service road for a long time. As soon as we thought the climb was over, we were thrown another flight of stairs that were steeper and longer. Nobody enjoyed the detour.

Our refuge to spend the night.

We stopped for a long lunch break once we were officially back on the trail. It was kind of entertaining to see everyone crowding around the lunch spot, each with a few choice words for the detour.

A beautiful sunset through the trees at Clyde Smith Shelter.

The walk to Clyde Smith Shelter was much easier than the rest of the day. We arrived and sat for a good hour before preparing something. We were completely screwed. After enjoying some beautiful light filtering through the trees, it was time for an early night.

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