Date: 2012-04-27
From: Tri-Corner Knob Shelter

To: Painter Branch Camp
Miles today: 20.4

I woke up this morning on the first wave of hikers departing at 6:30am and stayed in my bag through the second and decided the third would be my ticket out.  I visualized all the steps and got out of that shelter in twenty minutes flat.  I had arrived yesterday in such a rush to get out of the weather that I didn't really know which way the AT went.  Did I come in off a side trail?  Was this shelter on the main trail?  I wandered around in the foggy mist for a few until I deduced the answer and walked up the trail to meet up with the AT, turned north, and was off.  The weather looked good and I hoped it would hold.  My goal was to kiss the Smokies goodbye.  I had plenty of food for one more night out but didn't have nearly enough patience.  I climbed up to 6300' a few times from 5500' and rolled along the exposed ridgeline.  The wind blasted the hillside and you could hear it whipping through the trees far below in a deep valley that I could only imagine.  Everything 30' away was cloaked in a bright white mist.  Your other senses really fill in when your vision is impaired.  A few times the clouds would thin or the sun would break trough and I could feel the warmth immediately.  It has been so rare in the last week that I really appreciated it's value.  I hiked along for seven miles and started the final descent to the last gap in the Smokies.  I had stopped to check out a side trail and Freefall caught me coming back.  We hiked and talked for miles eventually stopping to eat lunch and I decided to change my socks.  The trails have been a real slog.  So much rain has fallen, much of the trails are either flooded with standing water, little streams heading for a water bar, or 4" deep bogs of sticky muck.  You just can't take big steps because the risk of slipping is too high and you don't want to sink into the mud too deep and fill your shoes.  Water is fine but this thick Tennessee mud is something else.  Dry feet in dry socks in soggy shoes were a welcome change.  Bumblebee came down the trail and we all hiked together down to the final shelter at Davanport Gap ~1975' where Bumblebee turned in.  Freefall and I kept on going and talked a lot about our past lives as well as our future.  This guy has seen a lot in his years and it was nice to talk to somebody with similar viewpoints on adventure, risk-taking, and the driving forces behind the decision to take on uncomfortable challenges.  The weather warmed up considerably and it was like being in the rainforest while we cruised down to the road crossing a beautiful rushing river many times.  After getting to the road, we crossed a few road bridges and went under the highway following the white blazes in a more urban environment than we were used to.  We found the trail and went back up a pretty big hill into the woods.  We climbed for a couple more miles and arrived at Standing Bear Farm.  I cooked a supreme pizza in the oven, microwaved both a chimichanga and a grilled chicken sandwich, downed two Pepsis, and a carton of chocolate soy milk.  I also resupplied my food for the next few daus and talked to the various hikers staying the night.  Although it was 6:00pm and I was moving on, it was still nice to see everyone I had been hiking/sheltering with finally get out of the Smokies too.  I headed up the trail another hour to a little blue-blazed campsite and found a bunch of campers distributed into two groups.  Not many useful tree configurations were found at the first group and I crossed the river using a downed tree to the second where I found one good site and Josh, Larry, and  Fozzy from Northern Kentucky.  They told me about how aluminum cans are made from a single base ingot and stretched up to be eventually capped off after filling.  I looked everywhere for a pair of suitable trees.  This was spider country and I was not interested in spending the night on the ground.  The only legitimate site blocked the trail and I asked for permission to be in the way for a few hours.  I got a unanimous thumbs up but everywhere you looked there was something looking suspiciously like poison ivy.  In California, poison ivy is much more rare.  The guys confirmed.  Mixed in was a bit of poison oak as well.  In the fading light, I went down to filter a couple liters of water and ended up hanging my food bag with Josh.  Josh plays banjo and we talked about music and his son.  Eventually, I brought out the ukulele and played for a spell.  The fireflies were out and I had never seen one.  I am thrilled to be out of the Smokies.  Final thoughts: the Smokies are beautiful but unforgiving and rarely amicable, sort of reminding me of that quote by Marylin Monroe, "If you can't handle me at my worst then you don't deserve me at my best."