Date: 2013-01-18
From: Brown Fork Gap Shelter

To: Fontana Hilton
Miles today: 13.0

Yesterday was cold! There was brutally cold wind and rain all day. It had to have been just over freezing, 35 degrees I'd guess. One of those days you don't stop because if you do you almost instantly start shivering. And your hands? Forget about it. Just accept the fact that they'll be numb. Now it's not really the temperature at that point that is the problem, but really it's the rain. Once you're wet even 50 degrees can give you chills. Shoot, so can 60. Add wind to the mix and you're in for some fun. Most hypothermia cases are in 40 - 50 degree weather. Yesterday was a perfect scenario. Thankfully I stayed warm and kept moving. Except at lunch. Will Call caught up to me at Cable Gap Shelter and convinced me to stay and have a warm meal and a cigar with him. So I did, and I enjoyed it immensely. What I failed to consider was the fact that my body is not accustomed to nicotine. The next 2 hours of hiking were TERRIBLE! I felt the need to vomit but couldn't. Big fat cuban cigar + skinny kid who rarely smokes cigars + high aerobic activity = MISERY! I'm an idiot. My next cigar will be enjoyed at the END of the day :DI stayed the night at the Fontana Dam Hilton, which is really just another shelter, but a really nice one. Real bathrooms included! I enjoyed a wonderfully hot shower last night, and just in time too because the temps fell below freezing last night. All of my soaking wet gear froze, and I now have everything laid out in the sun drying. What did you just day? SUN? Yep, for the first time in 7 days I see the sun and a blue sky, and it is glorious! I need to soak up all of it that I can because I have just the opposite coming my way. Looks like snow and single digits in the Smokies. I just heard that they found a hiker dead at Tri Corner Knob Shelter. :-/ My heart goes out to his family and friends.As to MY family and friends, please don't worry about me too much. I have excellent winter gear that should keep me warm and happy well below 0 degrees, I'll be carrying 8 days of food with me, and I'm grabbing my crampons for this stretch. Will Call is only a day ahead of me, and I may be able to catch up to him for some company and safety. The Smokies are 70 miles long, so with good weather and a good pace I could be out in as little as 4 days. With bad weather and a slow pace it may take me 7 or 8 days. I'll have enough food. If you feel the need to worry just turn that worry into a prayer and everything will be ok I'm confident and believe in this trip.Quick side note: have you ever heard of the waterproof fabric eVent? I hate it. It does not work. I bought two items made of it: my dry sack for my sleeping bag and my rain mitts. Both have let me down tremendously. After sevearl days of trying different approaches to wearing and using my rain mitts I finally ripped one in half and threw them in the trash can. $50 wasted. I TRIED very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, but those mitts did nothing but leave my hands and fleece liners soaking wet and freezing. I'm going to try to get my hands on a pair of neoprene fishing gloves. I hear they work very well in freezing rain. I also found last night that my "dry" bag made of eVent leaked a fair amount of water and allowed my sleeping bag to get wet. Not cool. I'll need to arrange the contents of my pack differently to avoid this problem in the future.Enough raving! It is a GORGEOUS day, and I have friends coming right now to scoop me up and take me into Robinsville for a nice dinner and a hotel! Life is so good! I'm enjoying mine, now go enjoy yours