We’ve been hearing about sick hikers with an intestinal “bug” ever since Erwin TN. The reports got so serious that Tennessee public health sent a bunch of folks out to interview as many people on the trail as possible. We had two doctors stop by Mountain Harbour while we were eating breakfast who asked us to answer a questionnaire. We could name a number of hikers we knew of who had been knocked off the trail for a day or two; and could repeat the rumors and speculation from the hiker community on what might be the cause.

Any way, we had been personally unaffected until today. N’s stomach began rolling in the middle of the night. And when he woke up this morning, he felt very weak… If he’d been in a town, he’d have stayed put and laid low, but N didn’t want to lay around in a tent all day waiting to get sicker, so on we trudged…

Fortunately, the trail profile today was very forgiving and the mileage to reach Bob Peoples’s Kincora Hostel relatively short. N had a very tough morning with even the most modest climb leaving him short of breath. However, after a half hour power nap at the Moreland Gap shelter, and a diet of consisting only of plain crackers, N did a little better and was able to make it over White Rocks Mountain and back to civilization by 3:00 p.m.

We were both revived by a shower before Bob loaded up his truck for the food run (both the restaurant and grocery variety) to nearby Elizabethton, Tennessee.

After two sunny days, rain is back in the forecast for tomorrow and we are supposed to start with a 2,000′ climb up Pond Mountain, but we are hoping the restorative powers of a good night’s sleep will have N ready for the task, and that we have dodged a bullet with whatever’s decimating so many hikers in our little bubble heading north…