AT Hike, Fly Fishing
Saturday we did another section of the AT: Wayah Bald to Tellico Gap. It was a fairly easy hike and not too long (9.5 mi), but since we haven't hiked a ton recently I was more than ready for the end of the hike by the time we reached it. We have been day hiking sections of the AT by leaving a car at both ends. A couple things were interesting. One, we hiked through a long section that had been burned by the forest service in a controlled burn about a week beforehand. The whole place smelled like a camp fire. Secondly, we came across an "Angel Dome". A retiree had setup a huge orange dome that seated maybe 8 -10 people. He was giving shelter, hot dogs, cokes, etc to thru hikers. He was a great guy and though he offered me a coke my conscious wouldn't allow it since I had one in the van not 5 miles away. He had been there about 2 weeks and had over 180 folks come through. He was at Burningtown Gap which is roughly 180 or so miles from the start of the AT. A few thru hikers I saw in the area had been on the trail about 2 weeks. By that time a hot dog and coke are pretty nice. Here is what the dome looked like:
Sunday we did our first fly fishing of the season. We headed up the the SMNP in between church services and fished a couple hours. It was nice and we both managed to keep from getting skunked Christy had a brown and I took a brookie. We had thought about going to the Tuck which is stocked, delayed harvest, and nationally renowned - and about 15 minutes from our house - but we both like the solitude of fishing in the park for wild trout even though it means fewer and smaller fish.
posted by Mike Barber at
5:59 PM
2 Comments:
And here I thought fish came from the supermarket !!Cheisty, do YOU actually gut the fish?? I have trouble with eating anything I've grown,or seen alive before I eat it. Oh, and 9.5 mi is NOT a LONG hike.For me it would be a day long trip.Marsha L.
Well, we are close to the typical yuppie fly fisher folk. Which means we don't actually EAT the fish we catch (though that may change on the next backpacking trip). We draw the yuppie line at buying an Orvis edition suv. We buck the trend by rolling down the forest service roads in the 7 year old dodge caravan (the blue bullet) or the ford taurus with 150k miles on it. This allows us to feel (and act) superior to both bait fishermen and snotty fly fishing elitist - whichever is most convenient at the time.
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