Date: 2014-04-21
From: Fontana Dam

To: Smoky Mountain Natl Park
Miles today: 71.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Hello Everyone!I have so much to share! In an effort to save battery on my phone, I had only typed bullet points in "notes" on my phone. This morning I typed up a weeks worth of journaling and accidentally deleted them all. Wah wah wah So I will try to fill you in on what I actually remember...Monday was our first day in the Smoky's. It was a gorgeous day; sunny, cool and clear skies! A great first day for our uphill trek! We were able to enjoy beautiful views once we got high enough up. Kent and I took it slow and the hills went by pretty easily! We arrived at our shelter early in the day and were able to visit with the other hikers. The shelter's are pretty cool, they are made of stone and have fireplaces inside! Very helpful in the cold weather. (In the Smoky's everyone is required to stay in a shelter unless they are full, in which case tenting or hammocking is allowed). Murray and Osiris were there with T-Bird and a group of kids out with a ministry just doing the park itself. We had a great night! Unfortunately, we learned that we had missed a mama bear and her two cubs that had been spotted on the trail. We seemed to be the only ones who didn't see them. I have been dying to see a bear! Speaking of bears. In the Smoky's you also have to bear bag (hang your food from a cable so it's out of reach of bears in the area). Of course, we never usually do this, so we had nothing to put our food in. Jon and I ended up using a trash bag with zip lock baggies inside to try to keep it rain proof. The other hikers made so much fun of us the rest of the way through the park! Oh well. It worked!Tuesday, was a rainy rainy day. We had planned on hiking three shelters up, but the trail was so slippery and muddy and miserable, and all uphill (I swear) we stopped at the second and decided to stay. It was a short day but walking in the rain, is so hard, we didn't want to kill ourselves. Plus, we had a few falls on our way there. However, there was a ridge runner (the enforcer of the rules) and he informed us that the shelter was already full. Oh no! I didn't want to have to set my tent up in the rain and sleep in a wet tent! Luckily, the people who had reservations at the shelter, were the same group we had camped with the night before and they didn't mind making room for us. As an added bonus, we collected fire wood (even though it was wet) and were able to get a fire going inside the shelter! It was great to be able to dry out our clothes! That night around 4 am there was a ton of commotion going on in the shelter. The group of boys were cold and decided to leave. They took about an hour and a half to get all their stuff together. Ugh, we were basically all awake then. Not fun. Sleeping in shelter's is hard because everyone's smushed together closely, there's snoring and farting and noises from air pads as people roll over and when one person gets up, basically everyone has to get up. But they are dry and sometimes warmer than outside! Wednesday was an early day. It was super windy and chilly, but not raining! We had a great day of walking up to Clingman's Dome. The forest changed to spruce and smelled delicious! And the views from the mountain were amazing! It was one of my favorite sections to walk through by far! However, Kent was   having a serious change of heart. The whole way up to the dome he was saying that he was going to leave the trail that day. It made me sad. I hoped he would change his mind. I've been enjoying hiking with him. We decided his new trail name should be "reluctant Hiker".   When we finally made it to the top, it was awesome! We were excited to go to the little shop to buy some goodies! By this point we were starving and food was getting scarce. But we quickly found out from Osiris that candy bars were four dollars each! Oh my goodness, we weren't that hungry. I can re-supply for a day on four dollars. Needless, to say, we didn't get any. We did get four small fun sized packs of M&M's from a lady walking by! There were eight of us sitting on a rock wall, so we all shared. I think we got five M&M's each! But hey it was something! Then a very nice lady stopped to chat with us and I mentioned the hardest thing was not eating all the food in my pack at that very second. She sat down next to me and opened her fanny pack. Inside she had three clementine's, two string cheese, and six homemade oatmeal cookies! She gave them all to me! Of course, I shared with the rest of the group! We were all so excited! A big morale boost! I told Kent he better stay on the trail at that point, or give up his trail magic to the rest of us! He's still here!That night we once again ended up at a shelter with Murray, Osiris, T-Bird, and the group of boys again! It was another great night with a fire inside the shelter. The boys who couldn't sleep stayed up and stoked it, so we were warm all night! However, Murray had hurt his knee going downhill that day. I hoped it was nothing serious. The next morning, he was still limping and hoping he could make to the next road crossing. I felt so bad for him. As we started walking that day, I realized that we had to cross a road that went into Gatlinburg. I got very excited about the prospect for food. If you saw my post on facebook, you'll know that I convinced the boys we should go. At the road crossing there was a free shuttle headed into town! We jumped on! In town it was a bit of a nuisance to get to a dollar store via the trolley, but we finally made it and luckily, there was a McDonald's and a subway next to it! We got a re-supply for five days and real food! Amazing!After getting our stuff we had to then decide to go back to the trail or stay in town. We decided that if there was room on the free shuttle the next morning, we would get a room and stay. If not, we would try to hitch back to the trail where we got off in Newfound Gap. While I ran into the NOC to sign up for a ride, there were three spaces left! We would get to stay! I would be able to shower! I ran out to tell the boys the good news, but to my surprise, there was a car pulled over talking to Jon and Kent. Jon saw me and said, to hurry up as we had a ride back to the trail. I ran back in to cross our names off the list and headed to the car. The driver was named Sexy Legs! He had hiked the PCT last year and was super excited to help out other hikers. He had seen Jon and Kent sitting on the side of the road and knew they were thru hikers. He asked where they were headed and offered a ride. How could we say no?Sexy legs and his girlfriend Jamie were great! Super nice and so understanding of our smelliness! We enjoyed chatting with them back to the trail. When we got to the drop off point, Sexy Legs gave us cliff bars and bananas! Two of our favorites! While were chatting with them before heading out, a man stopped to talk with us. He was so excited for our journey, he offered Kent a 100 dollar bill! Kent declined saying he couldn't possibly take it. Jon and I died! We gave Kent a hard time for not taking it, but it was his choice and he didn't feel right. Oh well. We hit the trail again and headed to the first shelter three miles up trail.At the shelter, there were a ton of people, but luckily there was still some room for us. We knew it was supposed to rain that night and the next day. I was thankful to be inside, even if it was crowded. The other really cool thing, is that we met back up with Bamboo and some other hikers from YWAM (the group we had camped with a couple weeks earlier, who we really enjoyed being around). It was another nice night!The next morning, it was pouring rain and really windy. We did something we never do, and decided to wait out the rain for a while. We knew it was supposed to stop raining in the afternoon, so we thought we'd take a chance that it would stop form the comfort of dryness! At 11 am, we finally headed out and were so glad we did! When we got to a place called Charlie's Bunion, the sun came out and the rain stopped and were treated to the most amazing view! Once we started hiking again, the rain dumped on us. But it didn't kill our spirit as we had gotten a treat that other's had missed. The day was hard. There was a ton of uphills and the terrain was rough. Kent started getting a really bad pain in his heel that had been bothering him earlier, but really started screaming now. It was a rough 12 miles, but we finally made it to the shelter we had to stop at. The shelter was even more packed than the one before. We had no choice but to set up tents. I tried to prepare myself as best I could for a wet night. Kent and I tented and Jon slept on the muddy wet floor of the shelter. It was not my favorite night, but the next morning was not raining! So we packed up our wet stuff and set off for a long day to try to make it out of the park!The sun finally came out and the day turned out to be perfect! We joined up with Gunpowder and Flint (a couple from WYAM) and they hiked with us for the whole day! It was so nice to have new people to chat with. They are a sweet couple and have the most interesting experiences of traveling the world. It was fantastic! At lunch we were able to lay out our wet stuff to dry it and enjoy having the sun shine on us!We ended up doing 17 miles that day! We got out of the park and were greeted by the YWAM van with fresh cold water and snacks at the first road crossing we came to. Yay! It gave us the boost to get up our last huge hill of the day. We found an amazing campsite next to a very pretty river! The best part was that we were able to get in the river (separately) and take a "trail bath"!!!! After six days without a shower, we needed it! It's not the same as a shower, but feels great!We all slept well that night and were feeling very accomplished for making it through the Smokey's!