Date: 2012-04-26
From: Campsite Beyond Beauty Spot

To: Clyde Smith Shelter
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 35: What a day! As we get out of the tent this morning at about 7:30, the sky is threatening. We quickly get all of our stuff together in our packs and then begin to take the tent down. Just as we get half of the tent put away, the sky opens up. A fast moving thunderstorm has struck. As I struggle to get the rain fly and ground cloth into the stuff sack and then into my backpack, rain and hail pelts us and we get soaked very quickly. There's nothing we can do except start walking, so back onto the trail we go. As we ascend Unaka Mt, cold rain and high winds along with thunder and lightening make for a very unpleasant start to our day. We make it up and over Unaka Mt, and as we descend, the storm subsides and we begin to dry out as we near Cherry Gap Shelter, about 5 miles into our day We stop in at the shelter, where we make some hot tea, which warms us up. I happen to look in the pocket of my backpack where I keep my wallet and notice that it's missing. I pull eveything out of the top of my backpack and look inside, but no wallet.  Considering what to do now, we decide to walk up the trail a bit, where we get a cell phone signal. I call Bank of America, and after a half hour of wrangling with their automated system, I finally speak to a live person. We have him put a temporary freeze on our credit card account and decide to backtrack our steps and look for the wallet. We walk back to the shelter again, where I see several other hikers who have come from where we think we might have lost it. Nobody has seen it. To backtrack and look for it means I will have to hike 6 miles back and then return to this shelter. We change our minds at this point, and decide to go back up the trail and call Bank of America again to see if they can send us some cash or a check. Before we call them, I pull everything out of my pack one last time and look inside. Low and behold, I see a corner of my bright orange wallet wedged down in the lower compartment of my pack against my sleeping bag. You just can't imagine our relief at finding it! By now, it is 2:00pm and we still have about 9 miles to go. As we push on the walking is easy at first, but then the terrain becomes a little more rugged, and it starts to rain again. The trail becomes very muddy and slippery with about 6 miles still to go. Trudging on, I begin to feel my energy level falling fast with about 3 miles left to go. I begin to fall behind SilverGirl. She waits for me a few times, but I just keep falling further and further behind. I just don't have enough fuel in my body to keep up and I'm struggling. As she slips out of site ahead of me, I literally stagger on. Eventually, I look and see her standing at a junction in the trail with a smile on her face. We have reached the shelter! As we come up to the shelter, we see that it is packed full, so we go around to the back of the shelter where there is a flat spot and set up our tent. After getting things set up inside the tent, we cook dinner inside. Right now, we are just resting. It has been a withering day for us, our worst day yet on the trail. On the bright side however, we did find my wallet, and that alone made our day. Tomorrow, we hope to hike up and over Roan Mt, Jane Bald, Round Bald, and Big Hump Mt. It will be another strenuous day, and we hope the weather improves because this is a gorgeous section of the trail. OK, enough for today. We are going to sleep.