Tue 4/21 - PM 60 minutes

Out and back, and out and back, on the AT from SR 601. Garden variety clusterfuck as my pie in the sky plan to reach the summit of Whitetop came to grief. In fact, the original plan was to bike to Green Cove in the morning along the Creeper trail and then run to the mountain from there. A bridge way too far, instead I ended up doing just a bike ride out and back along the Creeper (with an ill-advised short cut up and over a mountain road thrown in as well) between breakfast and lunch. Upon arriving at the trailhead/intersection at 601 I merrily took off down the trail and realized just under 15 minutes later I had in fact gone the wrong way after misreading the map. Turned tail and headed back to the intersection and headed the correct way towards the mountain. Very embarrassing to get east and west so thoroughly mixed up. The trail towards Whitetop steadily climbed along the flank of Beech mountain, seemingly endless. With shadows lengthening and feeling quite exhausted, I decided to turn tail and make another try later on in the week instead. The warmer weather of the last two days has been replaced by clear cool conditions with a steady westerly breeze.