Goodbye, Great Smoky Mountains!

At most amusement parks you will find at least one ride that has a shirt, "I survived ___." After finishing our 5-day trek through the park, I feel that at the very least we deserve shirts that read, "I made it out alive...Great Smoky Mountains National Park." In all reality, it's all about luck with the smokies. Just a few days earlier, there were guys in 5 feet of powder, post-holing all the way without snowshoes. We experienced patchy snow with up to 4 foot snowdrifts and escaped without any significant weather issues. Praise the Lord!

Day 12: 11.3 miles. Fontana Dam-Mollies Ridge Shelter. First day of the Smokies. After hitching a ride into Fontana Village from the shelter, we retrieved our packages from the Post Office. This consumed the morning necessitating a late, 11am start. As it neared noon, I noticed a fire tower a few peaks beyond and asked Nate if he'd like to have lunch there at 1pm. "Nah, it looks too far," was his reply. We were at the base of the fire tower at 1:05 pm. We ate below, then made the climb. Nate made it half way up a flight of stairs, as I reached the top, 8 flights higher. It was on of those really old ones where you could feel it swaying in the wind. It was great! I had a beautiful view of the dam below and a full 360 degree view of the mountains. We had planned to make it to the second shelter, which was an extra 3.2 miles (an eternity when you have climbed over 2000 feet in elevation and the sun is quickly setting), but opted for the first one we came across. Inside we met our first thru-hiker since Gooch, 10 days earlier. His name was Red Ryder, a 49-year old gentleman who coincidentally was from Champaign, Ill, where I was born. Inside the shelter, we were treated to a nice warm fire. One of the perks about the Smokies is the amazing shelters. All of the ones we came across were made of stone, had a fireplace built-in, and tarps on the open side to help break the wind. While this is a nice convenience, it can also cause a lot of wild dreams during the night as visions of wild beasts tearing at the tarp run through your mind from the noise of the flapping tarp. Just as we had finished dinner, we were joined by three French Canadian hikers, who we had heard about, but not yet met until this point. They continued with us through the park. This first night was one of the loudest we had experienced. We had our food secured in a black plastic trash bag and hug on the bear cables, but I was unsure of the reliability of the material with the weight of our 15 pounds of food. Suddenly I heard a sound that I believed was the thud of our food hitting the ground from 15 feet above followed by scratching and crunching that sounded like animals were eating away at our supplies. I was so disturbed that I actually got out of my warm sleeping bag, slipped on my shoes, and ran out to the bear cables to investigate. To my relief, all of the food bags were still hanging and the noise was a huge tree that was on its last leg, leaning 45 degrees on a nearby tree for dear life, creating all kinds of ambiguous sounds. I stared at the beautiful night sky with the moon glowing and the twinkling stars, then quickly tip-toed back into the comfort of my feather-filled sleeping bag.

Day 13: 17.2 miles. Mollies Ridge-Silers Bald shelter. As we continued to climb, we got a few glimpses of the Fontana Dam and lake below, shrinking ever so quickly. Nate even noticed the fire tower we had stayed at for lunch the day before. During the late morning we spotted them: real bear tracks! They didn't follow the trail,  but crossed coming up from downhill. No sign of the bear but the tracks looked pretty fresh.  It was a long day with out first experience with deep snow. When the trail went around the north side of the mountain, we would be knee deep in snow, then half a mile later on solid dirt. It was very frustrating as it wasn't worth the time and effort of putting on snow shoes. We did use them for about a mile, which helped mix up the day. Red Ryder had another fire waiting for us. I was beginning to like the rhythm of the smokies.

Day 14: 15.5 miles. Silers Bald-Icewater spring shelter. The highlight of the day was summitting Clingman's dome, the highest point on the AT at 6643 feet in elevation. A few miles in with no dirt in sight, Nate said, "If it looks like this is going to continue, do you want to pull out our secret weapon?" We were finally thankful to really utilize our snow shoes. It was a tough climb, although only 4 miles from our shelter. At the top we strolled up the spiral ramp to the observation tower. We have a habit of choosing very cold, albeit panoramic, places for lunch. We froze up there, but enjoyed the beautiful view. The descent was brutal on the knees. Snowshoes were still utilized for the most part. Three miles from the next shelter was Newfound Gap, where president Roosevelt gave a speech when opening the national park. I could hear cars, and seem something across the valley, when all of a sudden I came up on a parking lot full of cars and people! I hadn't seen this much life in days! At the monument we found Red Ryder waiting for us, cooking up a meal. Some of the visitors struck up a conversation as he ate and offered him chocolate cake, peanuts, trail mix, and Tim Tam's, Australia's favorite cookie. It was a real treat. We pulled out our stove, cooked up some mean macaroni and cheese, snapped a few pictures, and we were on our way to finishing the last 3 miles. Busiest shelter we had stayed in yet with a section hiker, Trail Dog, two of the Canadians (one had dropped), who Trail Dog had given the name, "BP," and James, a thru-hiker who had started in January.

Day 15: 12.6 miles. Icewater Spring-Tricorner Gap. The mileage was easy, but the going was not. Ice and snow the majority of the trail. It was very frustrating because it was foggy all morning as we passed Charlie's Bunyon (a great view on a clear day with treacherous rocks). I caught up to Nate and Red Ryder after 3 hours, just as the sky cleared up and a clear scene came into view. We took advantage of the spot and had our lunch. Favorite quote of the day came from Red Ryder as we packed up our lunch, "I've found that I can't take too long a break or forest gnomes come up out of the woods and add extra weight to your pack."The rest of the afternoon was spent walking on snow that was half melted, so every 10th step you fell through and your leg was past knee deep in snow. Very frustrating. If you followed someone else's steps you weren't guaranteed firm footing either, and made it awkward as you had to alter your stride.

Day 16: 15.7 miles. Tricorner knob-Davenport Gap. Finally out of the park! The morning began as the previous day ended. Deep, unstable snow that made for slow going. Hiked with Trail Dog today. After 2 miles, the snow finally let up and we felt the firm earth below with every step. At that point we made great time. We made bets on what time we'd get to Davenport Gap. I said 2:40, Nate said 2:50, and TD said 2:45. On the last climb before our long descent into Davenport Gap, I was moving along at a steady pace when Nate blazed past me muttering something about, "gotta just get up this hill!" When I finally caught up to him he was sitting on the side of the trail. He had seen a bear. But he'll have to tell you about that one. Only minutes earlier I was thinking how all we had to blog about were bear tracks. After we finally reached the summit (which seemed to never come) we made a hasty downhill pace and reached Davenport gap by 2:25. I won. When we got to the gap, Trail Dog asked, "If I got my buddy to pick us up, would you want a ride to the hostel?" Umm...ride in a car for 10 minutes, or hike another 3.5 miles. Well that's a no-brainer! Within 20 minutes our ride drove up and we were sitting pretty in a luxury towncar, on our way to Standing Bear Hostel, where pizza, hot showers, and a dry place to sleep awaited. It rained that night and I was thankful to be indoors. It was a neat set-up, with a loaded pantry of food and supplies to get us to Hot Springs, 2 days away.

Day 17: 15.3 miles. Standing Bear Hostel-roaring Fork Shelter. Pancakes for breakfast. Simply not having oatmeal made my day. We had a nice 2.5 mile initial climb, which opened up to a field at the summit. Beautiful view. We discovered today that "knob" is Latin for, "Strenuous hike ahead." Steep, steep climb whenever you're climbing to a knob. A few miles before our shelter we hit Max patch mountain with large open fields and beautiful 360 degree views. As we followed the signposts along the open field, a parking lot came into view. After all our hiking, you can just drive within 200 feet of this place and park your car!?! A little disappointing, but I fully appreciated what my eyes were seeing after having worked so hard to reach that point. Red Ryder found a Lego Ninja up on Max Patch. He is out Motivation Man. You will see him in pictures quite often. Spent the night with three weekend hikers and our favorite HOBO, Rufus. Now, please do not be confused with the Appalachian Trail acronyms.
NOBO: north bound hiker, traveling from Georgia to Maine.
SOBO: south bound hiker, traveling from Maine to Georgia.
HOBO: a person with no fixed residence for > 6 months.

Day 18: 17.6 miles. Roaring Fork-Hot Springs, NC. High mileage, wind, and rain didn't damper our spirits; we were motivated to get to Hot Springs as quickly as possible. A few hills here and there, but we made great time arriving by 3pm. When we reached the next shelter, 5 miles beyond, we were glad we had not tried to continue on, as the entire roof was gone and the privy box was 10 feet from the privy hole. The wind was howling and rain set in, so we continued on. We passed 2 more north bounders who had started in December. No that is not typo. December. They were also the first people we met with snowshoes, although they used them quite a bit more than we did. By 2:30 we could see it, the quaint little town of Hot Springs, North Carolina. We settled into Elmer's, a hiker's hostel for hikers coming from more than 100 miles. We enjoyed the "gourmet vegetarian" dinner that was so exactly described in the AT guidebook. We also shipped of 14 pounds, including our snow shoes, woohoo!

Day 19. Zero miles. After much consideration, we opted for a zero (rest) day. It is a sunny day, low 70's with a warm breeze. Perfect weather for lazing around.  We have been catching up on the internet, re-supplying, and checking out the outfitters just down the street. On the trail hikers make Hot Springs sound like a city, when in reality you walk the length of the town in 5 minutes...strolling...but it is a very neat little spa town. Elmer's is a late 1800's Victorian style house that has been used for hosting guests and travelers since it was built. During WWI there was a German internment camp for 2700 German naval officers captured early on in the war.

Trail names:
First day in the smokies we got our trail names. Nate is Coyote, for obvious reasons if you read his blog. I was named Peach by Nate, which I just found out today was his attempt to get under my skin because he thought the name would annoy me. It was actually the what my grandmother used to call me, so I went with it. Nate's reasoning was, "Your cheeks always look like a peach." I'll take it. Better luck next time, Coyote.

We have planned out the next 190 miles to Damascus, VA into 11 days, with five 20+ mileage days. Our next beast is Roan Mountain, but after that the mileage dips to 15 & 16 mile days. With much prayer, sweat, and tears, we will hopefully arrive in Damascus by March 4th and return to Lynchburg that evening.

Happy trails,
Peach