Date: 2004-05-05
From: Derrick Bald Shelter

To: Newfound Gap
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: scattered clouds

We're getting stronger. And our stamina is improving too. It gets a little more obvious every day. I suppose this should not be a surprise, but, nevertheless, it is surprising. Not too long ago, for instance, I'd see an upcoming ascent - some mountain that we'd be climbing soon - and I'd feel a little bit of dread at the physical demand of it. But now, things have changed. The uphills are easier... You just get to this point where you just push yourself when your body may be saying a contrary "Wouldn't it be awefully nice to take a nice ten minute break here?". On this day, we climbed Clingman's Dome, which is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. It was a nice, sweaty climb (we were still drying off from the early morning rains), and while there some grey clouds, and the sky a bit hazy, the view from 6643 was nice.We (me, Moxie and Samurai - Knuckles and JP had got a later start to their day) were beat and hungry when we got to the top, so we had lunch at the base of the observation tower. Tourists, coming up from a nearby parkinglot, gave us looks of disgust, fascination, disdain, confusion, befuddlement, as if they were wondering how the dirty and unsavory-looking hobos had made it to the top of the mountain. In their defense, we were rather sprawled out in lazy fatigue all over the circle at the base of the path leading up to the tower.Ahem.The trail was rather interesting on this day. It kinda felt like some local schizophrenics had, perhaps as part of a character-building class, been given permission to design segments of the trail. It'd go from a soft, dirt-packed path winding aimlessly through eight foot pines, to a rocky and laborious semi-trail over strewn boulders to a section of scrub with the trail having circular sections of tree of varyinf thickness laid out (to protect us from the mud?) to areas where split logs were laid out as bridges I suppose... though often bridges weren't needed in the areas they were laid across. At some point we decided we'd push on to Newfound Gap and get into town. Oh the promises of town. Fresh showers. Soft beds. Steak! And, of course, beer.Samurai got ahead of us at one point late in the day, and as we exited the woods to one of the last gaps of the day, we saw that a local news crew had cornered him. He was even wearing a wire when we came up to him, the nervous seeming anchor and the camera dude. Yup, Samurai was wearing a wire, just like some sick, little informer. I'm sure we were all on the news that night... And I'm sure too, that in some Tennesee livingrooms there were some voices calling out to other family members, "Come, look at the TV! Those smelly vagabonds who were at Clingman's Dome earlier today are on the news!"And maybe, in answer, the family member who'd been addressed responded with a "I'm not surprised they're on the news... They were suspicious lookin' characters."Ah.We passed the 200 mile mark of our journey, and pushed on even more to Newfound Gap - just in time too, cuz there wasn't too much daylight left at that point.We hitched to town, got showered up and clean, and were soon heading to The Smoky Mountain Brewery.Hikers. If you are reading this hopng to learn about good places to go in Gatlinburg, you absolutely *need* to go to this establishment. Their food is mouthwateringly delicious. And they make their own beer. And it is phenomenal. If I (heaven forbid) were to ever live in Gatlinburg, I would happily get fat at that establishment.We stayed til late in the evening - 12:30, which, as I'm sure you can guess is equivalent to something like 4 AM for normal folks.The band was even good.Ah.We wandered home, happy campers that we were, and were soon lost in pleasant dreams....