SWEAT Crew Session 3
Written with the help of the whole crew
Little Bald to Gregory Bald Trail
Day 1
Majestic
Matt led our 9-mile ascent to magnificent Mollies Ridge. The weather was hot
and muggy with afternoon thunder. On our way in, we saw a bear as we were
approaching Russell Field shelter’s water source and a rattlesnake as we closed
in on Mollies Ridge shelter, which was just the beginning of all the wildlife
we saw this session. We made it to our camp that evening after a grueling hike
up Russell Field trail before hitting the A.T. and after Noah and James cleared
a blowdown along the way, and set up our tents behind the shelter.
Day 2
After
stretch circle, we headed out south on the A.T., working our way to Gregory
Bald trail. We make it about a mile and a half clearing waterbars and the
corridor. Matt, our fearless leader, was attacked by a bee at 9:13am and was
incapacitated by Benadryl by the afternoon, so he made his way back to camp to
rest. The rest of the crew continued on working, James and Noah saw another
bear, and by 4 o’clock we found ourselves an unknown distance from camp
(estimated mile and a half). David went forging for water, which he luckily
found under the blue blaze at Ekaneetlee Gap, before we headed back to camp to
be greeted by Matt who was prepping for dinner. After dinner, as Matt and James
were cleaning dishes, they found out someone had used our sump hole as their
privy!
Day 3
We
worked our way towards Little Bald in the morning. Sean was supposed to meet us
today, but he got held up in the office. So after lunch we headed back to the
shelter, where we stopped to refill on water and talk to some hikers. From the
shelter we kept on towards Gregory Bald trail, working from where we ended on
day two, clearing waterbar’s and brushing. On our way back to camp we came
across to more bears and later that night we also hog watched as a herd of hogs
came near camp.
Day 4
Sean
finally made it to camp in the morning after being held up all day at the
office the day before. From there we headed out to work on tread all day! Sean
left at lunch, but not before he and Matt saw another bear, but fear not we
were later greeted by the man himself, Randy Puckett (don’t worry Andy, we told
him you said hi). During our tread work, we also angered a nest of yellow
jackets and had to leave a section at the end of our sidehill alone, but we
completed about 206 feet of bench work!
Day 5
We
headed out to finish a section of tread work that we had begun at the end of
the day before. After finishing that section, we split up into two groups and
one group headed out to the end of our section, Gregory Bald trail, while the
other group worked from where we had stopped on day three towards the Gregory
Bald trail. The two groups ended up meeting around lunch, and after lunch we
worked on two short sections that desperately needed sidehill work. We also had
some trail magic, as Brad, a volunteer from session one and two, hiked up to
see us for the afternoon and brought us apples and bananas (however, he forgot
the cookies Chloë had asked him to hike up to us)!
Day 6
Hike out
day! We packed all our gear and the crew was on trail a few minutes after
8:00am, ready for a mostly downhill hike, which proved much easier than our
hike in. It took us about four hours to hike out, where we ended up in the
Cades Cove picnic area to the smell of some really good food being cooked over
fires. We then made it back to basecamp, where the crew cleaned the tools and
put away all the crew gear, and everyone finally got to shower! Chloë then
cooked us a great meal of burgers, veggie burgers, and salad, and we had the
rest of the night to hangout and talk before our awesome crew members left the
next day.
