Date: 2012-05-28
From: Double Spring Gap Shelter

To: Day 13
Miles today: 13.8

So the day started at 4:00 AM with a gentle nudge from Jude. I chugged my cup of coffee, skipped breakfast, haphazardly shoved all of my stuff into my pack, dawned my head-lamp, and huddled up with the boys. Jude was up and at-em, Evan and I were groggy but awake and, to everyone's surprise, Luke was up and packed and ready to go before anyone else. He decided to join us at the final hour last night, probably just to prove Wilderness wrong too. I'm beginning to think that Luke might actually carry that ridiculously heavy pack all the way up to Maine. His head is obviously in the right place and I just can't foresee anything stopping him at this point. It's exactly 3.1 miles and 1,077' feet of elevation gain from Double Spring Gap to the top of Climgmans Dome; and we estimated that we had about an hour and 40 minutes to get to the top by sunrise, seeing as how we started hiking just after our 4:20 AM safety meeting.    What an intense climb. Just as the night started to give way to the dawn and the fog started to rise out of the valleys a thick band of clouds became visible just a few ridges over. And it was heading our way. I was in the lead like usual and, until this point, had stayed at least within ear-shot of the group in order to adhere to proper night-hiking etiquette. But I'll be damned if I was gonna let some rain clouds ruin my sunrise on the highest point on the AT so, at that point, I just started to sprint up the mountain, high on caffeine and adrenaline and engulfed by summit-fever. I made it to the top just as the North Star and Orion became the last stars visible in the sky. No Sun yet though so I was just in time. I sprinted to the top of the observation tower and was surprised to find one lone Asian tourist up there with an HD camera recording the sunrise. We exchanged respectful head-nods and I sat down to rummage through my pack. I decided to put on my jacket and eat a pop-tart because, even though I was pouring sweat, it was in the 30's and, even though I wasn't hungry, I hadn't eaten yet. My timing could not have been better. Just as I got to the top the sun began to peek over the horizon. The fog below hadn't quite lifted yet and the clouds above hadn't quite obscured the sky yet. So there were these few moments where we were just hovering in the sky in between these two layers of clouds. It was just me, the Asian dude, Clingmans Dome, the Sun, and about 4 or 5 other mountaintops tall enough to pierce through the fog... alone in the world for a brief snapshot in time. Just a few minutes later the clouds broadsided us and completely obscured the sky. Unfortunately, the rest of the guys took a wrong turn a 1/2 mile before the Dome and din't make it before the clouds hit. They were kinda bummed so we all chipped in our last little bit of weed and sat there and smoked town-sized bowls like it was nobody's business. We decided to wait it out for a bit to see if the clouds would blow over. So, while the others ran down to the visitor's center to find running water and cell reception, I cozied up on the wall at the base of the tower and took a nap right there on top of the tallest mountain on the whole damn trail.   By the time that I woke up the place was overrun with tourists. Wilderness and her fam were there and they could not stop laughing at me. Apparently I sprawled out in such a way that my twig and berries were hanging out for the world to see. Wilderness had been sitting on the wall adjacent to me watching one tourist after another get an eye-full as they approached the tower from the visitor's center. I must have flashed dozens of tourists during my 2-hour nap. The early-birds got much more than they bargained for on this morning. Moreover, the clouds made it impossible to see anything from the tower so my pirate flag, which I had left flying up there, had become the center of attention. There was literally a line of people waiting to take their picture with my flag on top of the mountain. They got a pretty genuine Smokies experience if you ask me; they all got to experience a thru-hiker in his natural unclothed state and witness Mother Nature in all of her muggy cloudy windy glory. Eventually the clouds did blow over so we all took a round of pictures and had another safety meeting in the tower. Then it was time for more speed-hiking.   It's only 8 easy downhill miles to get from Clingmans Dome to Newfound Gap, where it's an easy 15-mile hitch to get to Gatlinburg, TN, the other "Gateway to the Smokies." Gatlinburg is not the quaint German-themed resort community of lore however. Instead, it's this cheesy plaster-and-pastel tourist trap that is doing everything in its power to appeal to the masses and pull visitors out of the Smokies. It's more reminiscent of one of those old run-down redneck tourist strips back in FL than a pristine Smoky Mountain resort community. Luckily, an N.O.C. outpost is like the first thing you see coming out of the woods and the employees were nice enough to let us stash our packs there and use their staff showers. Clean and unencumbered, we all took a big gulp-and-a-sigh and headed into town. What we found was something in between a New Orleans casino and an airport outlet mall. Every generic pseudo-up-scale restaurant franchise imaginable is in Gatlinburg, none of which were very appealing to us. But there isn't a single decent grocery to re-supply or a single laundromat do laundry. Desperate, we decided to just play it safe and do the lunch buffet at Shoney's and get our asses out of town. But not before stopping by the moonshine distillery and picking up a few different varieties of moonshine, which turned out to be watered-down and over-priced. On a high note, Jude was able to buy a small sack of weed from a townie boy so we're not completely dry (that few hours of not having any weed was worrisome to say the least.)    Gatlinburg was supposed to be a pleasant break from the Smokies but it just kind of left us freaked out and ready to get back to the woods where everything makes sense. And to top things off, the hitch out of Gatlinburg was nearly impossible. It's like the town didn't want to let us go without getting more of our money. We ended up just paying the $40 for an N.O.C. shuttle and got the fuck outta dodge. Back in the safety of the woods, the trail greeted us with a moderately chilly afternoon rainstorm. It felt nice though, kind of like washing the filth and the sin of Gatlinburg off of me. From Newfound Gap, it was a quick 3-mile climb to get to Icewater Spring Shelter.    We got to the shelter earlyish considering we went into town today. There were already a few weekend-warriors there so we dropped our packs, changed into dry clothes and bushwhacked into the woods until we found a nice spot to sit and smoke for a while. When we returned another thru-hiker named Shenny was there setting up. She's probably in her late 40's and is deeply religious. In fact, she stays in shelters every night and hand-weaves a little Catholic rosary that she leaves behind in every shelter she stays in. Then another older woman thru-hiker named Momo showed up. MoMo worked in a hospital for many years and she's a bit older, wiser, and more down-to-Earth that Shenny is. The two of them immediately struck up a conversation that only middle-aged female thru-hikers could understand. Then this guy Max, whom we've heard of, shows up with his dog. Now dogs aren't allowed on the AT in the Smokies but Max dos not give a fuck. He's a Tennessee boy with a bone to pick with authority and speaks with the most friendly and colloquial Tennessee-Carolina accent I think I've ever heard. Eventually some more soaking-wet weekenders show up as well. This means that we'll be packing about a dozen wet stinky hikers into the shelter tonight, sardine style. Despite the fairly miserable conditions, everyone is in really high spirits due to the ridiculous amount of booze that we all happen to have on us. The weekend-warriors came prepared for sure. We all smoked weed and drank whiskey until well passed hiker midnight. Even Shenny, albeit out of place, had good time fraternizing with all of us drunken lechers. It turned in to a very drunk, rowdy, stormy night here in the Smokies after our Clingman's Dome Gatlinburg day.