Since I had to cut this trip short, I won't take up too much of your time but will put this out for those in the area who might like to try some variation of this themselves. I'll concentrate on the hammock related stuff. The trip itself was planned for 3 days but I bailed the second day with severe knee pain, which is why a lot of the spots I intended to visit stayed unvisited.
I went in at the Byron Reece Trailhead, which sits in between Vogel State Park and Neel Gap. If you get there early in the day, especially a weekday, my research says you'll easily find a parking place and I did. I'll note that it was much more full when I came out at 2pm on a weekday but there were still a few spots available.
The Byron Reece Trail is 3/4 of a mile and leads into the AT north of Blood Mountain shelter. It intersects the trail at the same spot as the Freeman Trail. I tried to take the Freeman but found only ice covered rocks and lost the trail in less than 100 yards. I then scrambled back up to the AT and went south up and over Blood Mountain, eventually connecting with the Duncan Ridge Trail.
It's worth pointing out that you could also skip over Duncan Ridge, go a bit further south on the AT and jump off on the Slaughter Creek Trail. Doing that would be a nice little hike that could include looping around and coming at the Freeman Trail from the other end, or connecting to Jarrard Gap trail farther down. Lots of possibilities there.
Anyway, I took Duncan Ridge over to the Coosa Trail, turned right and walked Coosa down to the Bear Hair Trail. I walked the Bear Hair's short length over to its junction with the Coosa on the other end and then took the Coosa, going counterclockwise up to about Calf Stomp Gap where I spent the night. That was roughly 13-14 miles, longer because of the backtracking I did from time to time. The next day I continued the Coosa loop on around back to Duncan Ridge, and then reversed the previous day's directions back north over Blood Mountain to Byron Reece and out to the car.
The AT was crowded. When I was on it, I was never out of sight and/or hearing of other hikers, most all headed north. I met one guy from Australia and talked to him a few minutes just to listen to his accent.
I thought that Byron Reece was a fee-based parking lot, but unless I'm totally blind there's no kiosk at which to pay, so I assume it's free parking.
Weather was amazing, amazingly cold. Walking in Monday I was in ice fog, especially at the higher elevations of Blood Mountain and Coosa. Temperatures at night were in the teens and I set a new personal record low of 19 (it dropped to 18 after I got up the next morning). It was windy all day and all night. Some of the gear I used:
Cowboy rope bridge hammock
AHE Jarbidge underquilt
DIY underquilt protector
Hammockgear Quest tarp
Jacks 'R Better Hudson River top quilt
army surplus poncho liner
I screwed up and went too far and too high and at 5pm I was exhausted and not in the best spot to camp in terms of wind. Luckily, I read Hammock Forums a lot and pulled out all the tricks I knew that I learned from you guys.
I went downhill on the lee side of a ridge for protection from the wind and found a spot to hang. I stacked the poncho liner and the Hudson River for top protection, with the Jarbidge and uqp on the bottom side. Along with a good base layer, insulated pants and a couple of other layers I was fine all night long. Used insulated booties for my feet.
The tarp was perpendicular to what little wind wasn't blocked by being down below the ridge, and it went as low as I could possibly get it on that side, about 6 inches off the ground at the tie outs. I did porch mode on the lee side. I also tried the trick I'd read about but never tried of loosely burying one water bottle under an old log and some leaves. It worked! That water bottle didn't freeze. My other bottle did freeze but I was able to have coffee and cereal the next morning from the bottle that was still liquid.
I heard one tree fall in the night, but having it drummed into my head to check for widow makers before hanging, I was clear above and wasn't really worried.
Unfortunately, whatever I did to my knee intensified and it took me about 8 hours to walk the 8 miles back out the next day to my car, rather than continuing south on the AT as I'd hoped to do. I'll toss in a couple of photos, one of the results of the ice fog and one from Blood Mountain. Despite the setbacks, this was not a bad trip. I hope someone may find the information useful in planning their own trip, as I have often found your trip reports useful for planning my own.
Cheers.
ice_fog.jpg view_from_blood_mt.jpg
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Originally Posted by Grey Mouse
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