Date: 2009-01-25
From: Fontana Dam

To: Fontana Dam
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

When Phil and I first decided to hike the Appalachian trail South Bound starting in late August, the biggest concern of ours was hiking the Great Smoky Mountains in the winter. For 140 days, we slowly made our way south in anticipation of tackling the biggest Mountains o the trail after hearing horror stories of ice, blizzards,and frigid temperatures. Well we had finally reached the base of these 6000 foot monsters. We woke up early at the Standing Bear Hostel only 2 miles from the entrance of the Smokys and after a quiet breakfast from anxious nerves that had been building up the whole trip, we decided to check the weather report before we started out. The blinking red "Severe weather report" was the first thing that caught our eyes as we looked forward to the two straight days of snow planned ahead of us which certainly did not help our nerves. The first two days was exactly what we were warned about, snow and freezing temperatures. Every night, we would reach our shelter with ice beards and try to set up camp with frozen hands that barely worked. The only warmth we would feel during the day was when we finally thawed out in our sleepingbags as we slept next to each other trying to conserve every ounce of body heat. That didn't last long during our second night sleeping in a shelter up around 6000 feet. I went to bed with my camel pack in my sleeping bag to prevent my water from freezing and half way through the night, i woke up with icy cold feet after it leaked turning my bottom half of my sleeping bag into a frozen block of ice. After the two days of snow, we finally hit blue skys and amazing views. One of the big highlights was hiking Clingmans Dome, the highest point of the whole trail at 6500 feet. The view was one of the best we have ever seen with a 360 degree view of the whole smokys. With the blue skys and beautiful views also came some the the hardest hiking dealing with the snow that had built up in the previous two days. We were hiking through about a foot of snow while dealing with snow drifts that went up to our thighs. It was exhausting and cut our hiking speed in half making for long cold hiking days. Our final night, we reached the top of Thunderhead Mountain at 5500 feet and realized we had missed over shot our campsite in the dark. Instead of pushing later on into the night, we decided to set up our tent on a foot of snow on top of the mountain putting our tent to the ultimate test. We melted snow for our water and dealt with the freezing cold and wind that ripped through our tent. After a cold night snuggled up next to each other, we woke up to an amazing sunrise on top of the mountain where we had camped and left the Great Smokys Mountains. We also hit mile 2000 making it an exciting day. PHil and I were both revealed to have left the smokies. Although we had some of the best views the trail had to offer, the cold temperatures and deep snow made it for the hardest four days of our trip. We both decided we will never set foot in the Smokys again unless its warm and sunny and the trees are green. Right now, we are enjoying a day off at our friends the Littauers. Tomorrow, we hit the trail for our final week with only 120 miles left until summitting Mt. Springer. Its hard to believe this journey is slowly coming to an end after over 5 months on the trail. Our planned summit date is Feb 1st so we look forward to letting everyone know how the end goes.   -Nate