Date: 2016-10-27
From: Mollies Ridge Shelter

To: Derek Knob Shelter
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: overcast clouds

10/27 Day 5: I did not get a good night¢s sleep in the shelter. It just seems whenever I get comfortable, an arm falls asleep or something like that. I am probably just spoiled with too many pillows at home, almost making a gorilla nest to sleep in. Anyway, I guess what I saw the night before with the girl coming in late was not reality. Contrary to a fully dreadlocked thru hiker that I thought I saw, was a young short haired clean cut female section hiker named Crock Pot. Perceptions isn¢t always reality. She told us what happened to her and why she came to the shelter so late. Remember the ¢Active Bear¢ sign we had seen at Birch Spring Gap? Well apparently, there were actually active bears there. She told a story about a bear sticking its nose in her tent. She said she blew her whistle so loud they were both deaf. She noticed the bear was not leaving and saw its eyes out in the dark. It got close again and she sprayed it with bear pepper spray. At that point, she decided to pack up and head north to our shelter¢¦in her pajamas. That was a crazy story. I bet she was glad to see other hikers in the shelter when she got there.We bid Crock Pot adieu, and got a late start on our hike towards Derek Knob. Shortly into our day, after climbing over Devils Tater Patch, the skies opened up and we got a pretty good rain. We donned all of our rain gear, and I was kind of excited because I got to try out my new rain kilt that my mother had sewn for me. It worked great. I had lots of ventilation and no restrictions of movement. Maybe 20 minutes after it had started raining, we crossed paths with the kid who had been throwing up all day yesterday. I asked if he was feeling better. He replied with a grin, said he was not feeling better and proceeded to tell us he threw up all over Russell Field Shelter. That was where we were supposed to get water. We were told that all the shelters from this point on had water, so we decided not to risk stopping at Russel Field. Who knew if he threw up near the water puddle or not. On the way to Spence Field shelter, I saw 3 wild turkeys eating something on the trail and they scattered down the side of the hill as we approached. The Smokys were living up to their name as we were walking a lot in the fog, even though the rain had stopped. We ate lunch at Spence Field shelter and I went down the hill to look for water. When I came back empty handed, Blister had a huge look of disappointment. We were told there was water 1/2 mile down past the shelter on Eagle Creek trail, but there were two paths and we couldn¢t tell which one was the trail. We were told time and time again that there was a good flow of water at Derek Knob shelter, which was our destination for the day, so rather than dropping a few hundred feet in elevation on what potentially was a wild goose chase, we decided to trudge on. I had 10 ounces of water left to go the next six miles. What looked on AWOL¢s guide like a nice ridge walk with minimal elevation gain or loss from Spence Field to Derek¢s Knob couldn¢t have been further from the truth. There were some extremely steep, however short, hills as the trail decided to start going straight over the summits of mountains, in lieu of skirting them. There were some very pretty views, but each time we reached one summit, you could see the bald of the next summit in front of you, with a large drop in between. We finally got over the summit of Thunderhead Mountain at 5527 feet. With all the ups and downs that followed, and limited signage on the trail, I thought we were almost done for the day, when in actuality, we had a couple more big climbs ahead of us. I mistook Starkey Gap for Sugar Tree Gap. I was literally taking a small swig of water every mile, just to conserve what I had left. The last 1.1 mile was of course all up hill and relatively steep. I was very glad to see Derek Knob shelter. Earlier in the day I ran into a hike who was preparing for a 2017 thru hike and he said the spring at Derek Knob was flowing 2 liters per minute. I kept saying that in my head as I make the last 1.1 mile climb, ¢2 liters a minute, 2 liters a minute¢¦¢ I finally made it to a full shelter and after saying hello, asked where the water was. I filled up my water at this beautifully flowing spring, filtered it and drank a liter in 30 seconds. After both getting water, we joined the people at the shelter and had some nice conversations about their thru-hikes. Towards the end of dinner, 3 guys who did not look unlike Native Americans arrived at the shelter. One started smoking and I thought I caught the whiff of booze. They were more dressed like hunters than hikers. I went and said hello and they told me they got dropped off at Clingmans Dome earlier in the day and they were hiking to Fontana Dam. I picked my spot against the wall of the lower deck of the shelter. Blister was originally next to me, but decided to hang his hammock outside since the shelter was full. Boy do I wish I made the same decision. Our permits said we have to stay in the shelters, but we had yet to see any ridge runner or ranger or anything related to anyone in authority.This turned out to be my worst night in a shelter¢¦period¢¦ever. The three late inebriated arrivers had their lantern placed on the end of the table that consequently shined right in on my head as I lay there trying to go to sleep. Around 9:30 pm, I got up to take a whiz and asked them if they could move the lantern to the left because it was lighting up the whole shelter. They said no problem and moved it. Maybe a couple hours later, they decided they were going to sleep in the shelter. One guy was kind of moaning a bit and the guy next to me was rolling all around trying to get comfortable. Mind you, this shelter was full and there was little room to be tossing and turning. An undetermined amount of time later, I feel this drunk guy roll up on me, like literally half on top of my body. Instinctually, I took both arms and pushed him off of me. He then started moaning again, tossing around and then I started to hear, ¢huck ptoooey,¢ ¢huuuuuck ptoooey.¢ One of these three was clearing his throat and actually spitting inside the shelter, over and over again. One time after the ¢tooey,¢ and I may have imagined this, but I felt something hit me in the back of my sleeping bag. I reached my hand back there to feel if I had been spit on, but it is hard to tell cold from wet when it is cold out. I was horrified/angry all at once. A couple more fend offs of the guy putting his head on my sleeping bag had done it for me. At 2:30 am, I grabbed all my stuff and set my hammock up outside near Blister. The two other people on the bottom bunks, two thru-hikers, decided to just get up and start hiking. It was that awful. In the morning, no one was left on that deck of the shelter other than the three drunk guys. I was polite to them in the morning, but inside I was disgusted by them. I never could find any sign of ¢ptooey" on my bag, but I would almost rather not know.