Date: 2004-04-04
To: Ice Water Shelter
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

"The Lost Day"I guess I had my first heart pounding adventure a few days a go. I was hiking out of newfound gap from Gatlinburg to Icewater Spring Shelter where we stoped for lunch. I thought this shelter was on a side trail and was all upset over having to walk .2 miles down to it. It turned out it was actually on the AT and so when i was done with lunch I ended up hiking back up the trail--the way I came. Hehe I'm not the only one though--Sundance followed me. When I got .2 miles up the trail, going the wrong way, there was an actual side trail which I turned right on and hiked about 4.5 miles on. Sundance who kept walking south on the AT ran into Syracuse and he's like "Syracuse you're hiking the wrong way". Then Sundance is like "no you're hiking the wrong way." Hehe, So Sundance continues back to down the trail to where we started at Newfound Gap. :-)Mean while I'm enjoying this awesome trail which little known to me is actually a side trail. It's going over ridges with views left and right. The trail was also going through these dark hemlock forrest which ended up scaring me senseless on my way back because a bear could be anywhere. Anyway about an hour into this awesome hike I start thinking man I should have caught HeyBob (62 year old hiker I like hanging out with) by now. I know something is wrong then but I keep hiking looking for white blazes with no luck. I pull out my map to determine where I messed up and figure I could be on one of two trails near ice water spring shelter. I bet I'm on the the southern one that loops around to pecks shelter where I was headed to anyway. I thought cool it'll be an extra 7 miles but at least I won't loose my crew.A mile later I'm still hiking this awesome trail on the top of this mountain covered with ice and snow. The mountain starts to become extremely steep and trail extremely narrow. I notice there have only been about two people to go down this trail since the snow and this has me a bit concerned. After this next mile, I come around this bend and notice there are no more mountains north of here. Or just hills anyway. This isn't good cause I was supposed to be south and this was a strong indicator I was north, and the northern trail didn't go anywhere I wanted to go. Then I pull out my map and figure there is a shelter another half mile ahead. So I decide to hike there spend the night and I'll hike back in the morning. I'm kind of happy with all this excitement to break up the manotmy of the trail. :-) but then the mountain turns into a cliff and there's melted snow covering everthing. There are wire cables pinned into the wall but the cables were rusted and broken so if I fell the cable wasn't stopping me. Then it started to occur to me that if I did fall no one would be there at least till tomorrow and maybe longer. This was all setting in as I crossed this treacherous edge. When I'm almost to the shelter after crossing the nasty section of trail, I realize tomorrow morning this section would be ice. This thought made me sick. Crossing this section of trail with ice on it would be crazy. So I went from thinking it would be a half mile to being done to 5 miles and it was 4:30. This meant I could just make it back before dark. After getting shocked up a bit the walk back was a bit nerve racking. Thoughts of bears in the ever dark hemlock patch or sliping and getting stuck out of shelter all night where going through my head. I made it back Icewater Spring Shelter with only skinned knuckles from a small slip but man the trail wasn't boring that day. When I walked into that shelter Sundance said "what are you doing here?". We each told our stories and the whole shelter laughed. A bit later Trunks (who also got lossed that day) read in the journal where I signed "Stopped in for lunch, Quiet Guy". This also had the shelter in hysterics.The next day I caught up with HeyBob and he was sure I hiked back to Gatlinburg. He said that was probably the smart thing to have done and he could be right. Oh well enough story telling I need to go back to the campfire.