Date: 2007-03-16
From: Miss Janet's House, TN

To: Miss Janet's House, TN
Miles today: 0.0

Another day at Miss Janet's. Raining turning colder to around 14 degrees on Roan Mtn. Nice place to be with "Ramblin Rose, Boone & his father, Mo Lasses, Woodstock, Walrus" Final snow story of this hiking year(I hope). In the journal entry from my night at THe Mount Collin shelter; I mentioned that I was snowed in there once for 5 days. Well, here is the story: 12/8-14/04 : I was making the climb up towards Clingman's Dome. For December it was very warm around 60 degrees. I was finishing up a long hike from Kincora Hostel in Dennis Cove, Tn to Amicalola Vistor center,Ga & back to Kincora. As I was nearly on top of Clingman's and it began thundering. I thought that was weird for December. Soon it began to drop soft snow peas from the sky. I had not seen precip like this and could not decide if it was hail or large sleet. I started hiking hard to get to the Mount Collin's Shelter before the pecip got any worse. By the time I got to the shelter it was snowing big heavy wet snow flakes. I was hoping that there would be other people in the shelter because this snow event looked like it had some potential. When I arrived at the shelter; there was a red headed young man sitting way back in the right corner. I came in an said who I was and he said that he was "Skooter" from Mass. He said that he was a SOBO. We talked about this looking like a good snow. He said that he had just been snowed in for 3 days at Tri-Corner Knob Shelter the week before & had been in Gatlinburg for 5 days waiting for a favorable forecast. I could tell that he was worried about being snowed in again. We did not talk alot more than that THE FIRST NIGHT! I remember thinking:"man, I hope it snows something serious!" And it did snow about 1 foot of heavy wet snow that bent the branches on all the pine trees. It definetly "looked alot like Christmas". I woke up all excited about the possiblities of this day. "Skooter" did not move. He got up to pee here and there; snack alittle; and talk to me; but that was it. Now I want you to understand that I am not criticizing "Skooter". I have done long hikes where I was at "the end of my rope" & I knew it. That is where he was. I told him that I was going to improve our situation. I put up his space blanket, his ground clothe, and my tarp on the chainlink fence that goes across the front of the shelter. It blocked the wind pretty well; but, it was still letting in wind. To kill time: I started an ambitious project of building a snow wall in front of the shelter. It was hard work. After my long hike of about 650 miles, I was in pretty good shape. I also walked that .1 mile(?) to get water. I felt like I could probably walk to The Icewater Shelter about 7.5 miles away. I just did not know if it would be a better situation than what I was in. Also & more importantly was "Skooter". I did not feel good about leaving him here. It snowed about another 6 inches that 2nd night. It got down to 10 degress. I had a zero degree bag and it kept me fairly warm. "Skooter" and I talked deep into the night. Being a counselor of Adolescent youths for ten years and supervising young adults for 8 years; I just went into a brutal onslaught of free association questions, followed by Adlerian "how does that make you feel" questions, finished off with an evaluation of the day and a briefing of the next days events. I could get "Skooter" motivated to get out of this situation & I could learn about winter hiking. We both decided that it would not be good to walk out, until it warmed above freezing &/ or it quit snowing. The wind was above 10 mph consitently with much higher gusts. I continued to build my snow wall, it was about half way now and I had to make a way for an igloo type entry. I also began breaking trail towards civilization. I just went the .6 miles to the AT the first day. That night, I laid off of the Psychotherapy. We tried to talk with subjects starting from the letter A and work our way through the alphabet. Uh, AARdavark, Alabama, etc. It is tough being snowed in with someone. You run out of things to talk about and have to make up things to keep your sanity. The next day(#3): I finished the snow wall, broke new trail for about another half mile. It snowed about another 8 inches the night before; so there was over 2 feet everywhere. I also began gathering "squaw wood"(boyscout term for dead wood that is on the bottom of living trees, the lower branches on conifers. As I about had the shelter full of wood and bushels & bushels of dead dry thornless blackberry bushes; "Skooter" awoke! He yelled out of the shelter and said, "Im breaking up the wood!" I yelled back jokingly "that's uh' my boah!". He got a really good fire going. He said that "snapper" at Standing Bear showed him how to make one and stoke it. As we warmed up; we decided that we had to walk out the next day. It was near zero degrees last night & even with a snow wall that completely blocked all snow and wind & a fire; it was still 10 degrees in here. Tonight, I wanted to get "skooter" to come to terms with continuing hiking. We talked about all the positives and negatives of what he was to do next. Was he to continue to go to SPringer or go home and come back in the Spring. Poor guy, he had went 20 miles in 3 weeks. Luckily, he had the opinion that he had 1 calendar year from the beginning of his thru-hike to finish the trail. And that is what he decided to do. We went to bed planning our next day. We woke up and ate just about everything edible we had left in our packs. We wrapped trash bags around out feet, legs, arms, and hands. All we had exposed was our eyes. We went through the snow, constanly falling; but, it did not hurt because the sno was so deep. We got to where the AT was about .2 miles from the Clingman's dome road and cut across there.The road was much easier walking but colder. It was about 10 degrees with 15 mph winds with no trees to buffer the wind. The road from here to Newfound Gap was about 5-6 miles. We did not stop until we got there. When we arrived, we were dismayed to see that hwy 441 was closed. That meant no hitch to Gatlinburg! We weighed our options. We thought about sleeping in the restroom and waiting for a ride tomorrow. After about 5 minutes, we knew that this was not an option. We both began shivering badly. We said that we were going to have to walk the ice covered road all the way to Gatlinburg! That was 15 miles! So, we took off with 3 mph paces. Our beards were completly frozen. We did not stop. When we were about 5 miles from town, a park ranger pulled up.We were estatic! We could get a ride into town. The ranger immediately said that he could not give us a ride because ti was against regulations! He said if it was an emergency, he could give us a ride. We told him our story and I said that we were not going to be in the news as "hikers rescued" and kept walking. We refused his offer to warm up in the truck. We walked the last 5 miles cussing the park service and got into town around dark. We were proud and happy to be there. The tourist in town looked at us like we had come down from Mt Everest. The next day, "Skooter" and I parted ways. I have not seen him since. I heard he did go back the following March and finish his thru hike!