Date: 2008-03-10
From: Grand Prix Hotel - Gatlinburg TN

To: Pecks Corner Shelter NC
Miles today: 10.4
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 22 ¢ Monday, March 10¢ Pecks Corner Shelter NC ¢ Miles Today: 10.4 Total Miles: 215.0We're on the trail again! One can only spend so much time in a motel room! After a day and a half of watching TV - Beverly Hillbillies, HGTV, High School Reunion, and The Beauty and the Geek, and other fabulous shows, and five showers, one must hit the trail again.   It¢s the only way to get to Maine.We were up around 7:30. When we checked out, we had to get the motel bill adjusted. The check-in lady didn't give us the hiker rate so when the owner came back, we were able to get the adjustments. Funny thing about this motel, the office is closed on Sundays!   Not a problem for us, other than we missed our donuts, coffee and internet access. We started our hitching effort around 9:00. There was not a lot of car traffic, so we were a little concerned we might have to pay a $50 shuttle fee to go 15 miles up the road to Newfound Gap. That's sort of highway robbery but lo and behold the 5th car stopped and picked us up! A nice middle-aged couple, maybe in their 50s, from Maryville Tennessee, who were heading up to Newfound Gap as well to do some day hiking.We felt pretty strong today - not 100% - but probably around 90%. The terrain was pretty easy; there were patches of snow and ice. The ice made it tricky but luckily we did not fall.   We passed one thru-hiker, Virginia Slim, which is sort of an oxymoron; he's anything but slim but he's lost 65 pounds already! I believe he started at 315 pounds. He gets a standing ovation by us! He's a highly spirited, pleasant, articulate man to talk to. We had found his bear rope on the trail and were able to return it to him. Unfortunately, later in the day, he took a spill on the ice and came down on his hip quite hard.   When we met with him at Pecks Corner Shelter for the night, he was not quite sure if he was going to need a zero day or not to recover. Casualties right and left!We arrived at the shelter about 4:00 after a beautiful, sunshiny clear day. The forecast had called for a chance of scattered rain during the late afternoon or evening, but we did not get it. More thru-hikers arrived. We have Yeti who has just recently graduated from college; he's from north of Detroit. We also have Bare Fodder, a 70-year-old thru-hiker from Jasper Tennessee who is totally high energy. He actually was in the Smokies a couple weeks ago when they had the huge snowdrifts and had to be rescued!   He was trying to get from Icewater Shelter to Pecks Corner Shelter and ran into drifts as high as his chest. He called 911 several times before he was able to get through. On the last attempt to dial 911, he had trouble moving his fingers, but was luckily able to make the connection! He knew he wasn't thinking clearly as hypothermia was setting in. They asked him if he had any more clothes to put on and he said "Yeah, two more layers."   That was his clue that he wasn't thinking clearly. They told him to put on his extra clothes, pitch his tent and get in his sleeping bag. He did not like that idea of setting up camp, as he knew he could stay warmer if he hiked.   So he put on his extra layers of clothes and continued to push on to the shelter. I think it took him about 10 hours to go 5 miles! The next day a group of park rangers came up a side trail to the shelter and escorted him down to Smokemont Campground, where the drifts weren't quite as high. They basically got him off the ridge. So we weren¢t the only people getting rescued by the park rangers!After Bare Fodder told his rescue story, Virginia Slim explained that he was also rescued in the Smokies during that same nasty weather! He had hiked the same 4.6 miles to Newfound Gap that we had hiked before our rescue. When he got to US441, he was experiencing hypothermia. He called his wife, who then called 911. The park rangers from the North Carolina side came up and rescued him!There are 6 hikers at the shelter tonight. 5 thru-hikers and 1 weekend hiker.   Out of that bunch, the park rangers rescued FOUR of us. Not too good of a ratio!   Bet the weekend hiker thought we were all a bunch of losers and had no business attempting thru-hikes!   Though, thankfully he just silently listened to all of our rescue stories! We were glad to hear that we were not the only ones being ¢rescued¢!