Date: 2006-04-10
From: Derrick Knob Shelter 

To: Icewater Springs Shelter, Smokey Mtns
Miles today: 21.0

56,625 footsteps today I woke up at 6:25 this morning and found another thing that was much harder to do because of my arm...making my coffee. :-((( I always sleep with my food and when I wake up, I turn on my left side and stick my stove out the tent door to start the water boiling. Well, that hurts!!! I had to find a way though because there was no way I wasn't having coffee with my 2 fruit pies every morning. :-))) I wedged my clothes bag/pillow under my upper left side of my body and rolled up on it. That was uncomfortable, but it worked. It had been windy all night and was still windy this morning. I'd guess it was about 30 degrees out. I got packed up and said goodbye to Cheesewhiz, then started walking at 7:30. I walked slowly and just enjoyed the morning. The views through the leafless trees are awesome up here. It was a cool walk to Siler's Bald Shelter were I stopped to sign the register and met Fire Hazard and Cantaloupe. I walked on another couple miles to Double Spring Shelter and stopped to get water and sign the register. The temperature had warmed up into the 50's and felt great with the warm sun shining on me.This was the shelter I thought I was heading to yesterday. I always get shelters names messed up. I started the last climb up to Clingman's Dome, the highest point on the AT. I love the smell of the high country spruce and evergreens I get to enjoy each time I'm in this area.I walked up to over 6,600 feet high and spent a large portion of today above 6,000 feet. There was still some snow and ice hanging around in the shady areas, but with these warmer days, it won't be around long. The trail was muddy in a lot of places from the rain the other day and some melting ice. I ran into a nobo by the name of September just before the summit of Clingmans. I walked down about 1,000 feet and stopped at the side trail to Mt Collins Shelter and took a short break.There was two guys walking south and they had stuff hanging off their packs and swinging all over the place. There was even an aluminum table swinging off the one guys pack.I'll bet they're carrying some good food too. :-))) I ran into Jerico just before I got to Indian Gap and walked and talked to him until we got to Newfound Gap.He hitched a ride into Gatlinburg and I sat there at Newfound Gap and ate dinner on the stone monument. Jerico doesn't know how close he came to having company on the ride to Gatlinburg because he said he was heading to the Kentucky Fried Chicken. It really took a lot of will power on my part to sit there and eat spam spread and crackers. :-((( Jerico had asked me if I'd seen Banjo Man and his daughter hiking. I hadn't, but while I was eating, they came out of the woods and walked by.I said, "Hello Banjo Man", thinking I would surprise him because I had never met him or heard of him before Jerico had mentioned their names.He looked at me and started walking towards me and said; Hello Stumpknocker". I said I only knew his name from Jerico, but asked how the heck he knew my name.Turns out he's been reading my journals for some time. Ha!! Here I tried to pull one on him by calling out his name like I knew him and he got me back. We ended up talking a while and he introduced Rocket, his daughter, then they hitched a ride into town. I walked the 3 miles up to Icewater Springs Shelter and met Seattle, Atom and Hamburglar there. They were rounding up fire wood. I got some water from the spring and got an ice cream headache because it was so cold. I wanted to get some journaling done because I was already way behind, so I set up my tent and after a snack, I went to bed early and wrote. It's been another great day and I can walk without much bother from my arm. I just have to get it used to doing all the other stuff now.I can almost reach around for my water bottle in the side pouch of my backpack, but I still find I'm not drinking as often because it's so hard to do.I thought about putting the water bottle in my right side pouch, but I don't like changing my ways, so I'll just work on stretching the ol' arm around. Besides, my snacks for the day goes in my right pouch. :-)))