Woke up to rain and heavy fog so we sat around the shelter for a bit. Eventually the rain slowed, so we stepped off.  It was still pretty foggy though.

It had been very windy over the last several days and we came across a bunch of fallen trees. This one had recently uprooted and left large hole in the trail.

We got to walk through a hillside that was covered in towering pines and the forest floor was full of baby pines.

Some one must have really enjoyed the forest years ago, as we found the chimney of an old homestead on the side of the trail.

We arrived at the top of Roan mountain and took a break at the Roan Mountain shelter. It was one of the few I have seen that actually had a door.  It was built like an old cabin and had a large room downstairs and a loft upstairs. We sat on the bottom floor to eat lunch and escape the wind and cold for a bit.

After lunch we made it down to Carvers Gap which sits at the border of North Carolina and Tennessee.

There was a parking lot where people could leave their cars and “experience” the AT for a while!

From that point trail went up and over several large grassy balds. Without and trees to soak up the water, the trail was pretty muddy and actually turned into a stream at one point.  In the picture below, the Appalachian Trail is actually on the left.

I was being chased by wind and fog blowing off of Roan Mt as I hiked the last several miles of rolling balds.

I finally made it off the balds and down to the Overmountain Shelter. It is actually a repurposed barn with two floors overlooking the valley.

I was able to hang my hammock up in the loft and had a pretty good night’s sleep.