Date: 2016-04-28
From: Allen Gap

To: Big Butt
Miles today: 13.6
Weather: light rain

We started our day off with a delicious breakfast from the Smoky Mountain Diner. This time they had lots of food, which was good because we ate 3 breakfasts between us. Have we mentioned that it is fun to be on the all you can eat diet? There were lots of other hikers having breakfast. We sat at a table next to Skooch and chatted a bit. Saw giggles and his crew as well. We invited JT to join us. He is an aspiring hammered dulcimer player looking to make a career out of music. We really hope he is successful. We would go watch him in concert some day. His favorite dulcimer artist is the late Rich Mullins and he can play every one of his songs. If you are looking for a hammered dulcimer player for your band, sign our guest book asking for his contact info, we can send it to you. Other than the unpleasant hiker aroma, it was a great breakfast. On our way back to our hotel we passed Moose! We had been hoping to see him. A couple weeks ago he mentioned how much he likes horehound candy. We saw it in a store and picked it up in case we crossed paths with him. We told him we had something for him. "Do I smoke it or eat it?" he asked. We told him he could use it however he wanted to... we think he ate it...We learned that the party at the river last night got pretty wild despite the rain. The secret? Free Beer! Apparently, the hot springs resort was throwing out all of last seasons beer in their dumpster. Hikers can be opportunists you know. One of the guys throwing the beer out heard an ouch and realized there were people in the dumpster! We didn't know whether to believe it or not but when we ran into ironman on the trail, he admitted that he lost his cell phone while in dumpster. Due to the wild fires, we had to miss a small section of the trail (about 14 miles). Bluff mountain outfitters was giving all of the hikers free rides around the section of trail that was closed. We tried to tip them but they wouldn't accept it. They said it wasn't our fault we were caught in the natural disaster. They were awesome! As we all disembarked, they told us that the number one thing people leave in the shuttles is their trekking poles. Ironic because the night before, he left his poles in the hotel lobby while checking in. Luckily, we were able to get them this morning when we realized they were missing. We got to the trail by 10:30 this morning which wasn't bad at all! A little while in, we decided to stop and make some adjustments to our packs. Looking at our clutter as he passed, Giggles (who has more food than both of us combined!), suggested we could fit everything in our packs better if we threw some of it off a nearby cliff. Shortly after, one of our sleeping pads rolled down the mountain. Oops! Don't worry we didn't litter...The hiking today was spectacular. First we climbed a mountain for about 7 miles. Then we saw some cliffs that were gorgeous. We sat on one to eat lots of snacks. The trail followed a narrow ridge that offered stunning panoramas that we failed to capture with our cameras (despite our best attempts). She landed wrong on one step and twisted her knee a little. Don't worry, she is fine, but it was a sobering reminder that we are always one misstep away from ending our hike. We heard that one in four couples leaves the trail due to one of the people getting injured. Finally, we hiked up a bluff to camp for the night. We setup our tent next to pantry, a guy hiking with his dog, chatted a bit, and hit the sack.