Date: 2009-05-15
From: Campsite #113

To: Indian Gap
Miles today: 39.3

I¢m going to combine several entries into one for this one. I¢m doing this mainly to save a bit of time; we¢re leaving t head back to the Trail soon and I¢ve managed to procrastinate enough so that I don¢t really have enough time to write out all the separate entries. I¢ll do better for the second half of the Smokies. It¢s fairly remote in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park though and cell service is extremely spotty, so it may be several days before I can get another entry emailed off and posted to the site.We¢ve made it through roughly half of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and so far it¢s been a pretty cool ride. The terrain overall has been a bit rough, but we¢re walking along the highest ridgeline on the East Coast and have walked over several of the highest peaks on the Trail so the fact that things have gotten a little harder is understandable. I can only show one pic per entry page, but I¢ve uploaded several from the last few days so check the ¢Photos¢ link on the left to see them all.Day 1 we spent at the Fontana ¢Hilton¢. Fantastic shelter with an incredible view of Fontana Lake.On Day 2 we entered the Park and made our way up and over Shuckstack Mountain to Campsite #113. The campsite is gorgeous. It¢s nestled in a very pretty hollow and has a trickling spring that runs through the middle of it. There¢s plenty of space between the tent areas and several are hidden around the hollow to offer some privacy. It¢s the site of an old shelter and the remnants of one of the stone walls is still there. We camped near the old shelter site so the mouse population that lives there came to check us out that night. I only saw one mouse crawling around on my tent before I fell asleep, but BigFoot got to see an hour or so of the Mouse Olympics from his tent.Day 3 we spent at Campsite #113 again. It was raining, the forecast wasn¢t pleasant, and the place was gorgeous so we pulled a Zero Day in the woods. We did move campsite spots to get away from the mice but otherwise it was a nice lazy day.Day 4 we walked up and over Doe Knob and spent the night at Mollies Ridge Shelter. The day was fairly uneventful. The big fun for the day was spent at the shelter watching a group of day hikers stumble in and cook their dinners. (We¢re seeing a huge amount of day hikers and section hikers here in the GSMNP, more than anywhere else so far). I¢m not disparaging them at all, it was just interesting to compare our meal to theirs. We had a combination of Ramen and Easy Mac (lightweight, easy to make and clean up). They made camp pizzas, which looked good but there¢s no way we could haul around the jar of tomato sauce, block of cheddar cheese, pepperoni, and everything else they put on it. They even brought raw eggs and bacon for breakfast the nest morning! Craziness.On Day 5 we made our way to Spence Field Shelter. It¢s a very cool place but the day was foggy and wet so it didn¢t do much for me as far as views go. We stopped at Russell Field Shelter along the way for a quick snack and saw our first sign warning about bear activity at the shelter. A few of the older shelters still have chain-link fences around the front to keep bears out. This setup worked well for a few years, until people started feeding the bears through the fence. Naturally the bears like this, so now they stalk people going into the shelter and shake the fence during the night to make people feed them. The Park is in the process of removing the fences now and remodeling the shelters, but a few of the old ones are still out there.Day 6 was the best one we¢ve had in the Park so far. We made it to the summit of Rocky Top (yeah, the song was stuck in my head for the next 4 days) and were trested to an amazing view of the mountains. We spent some time at the top enjoying the views and soaking up the sun and then moved on to Thunderhead Mountain and did the same there. It wasn¢t quite as nice since the view was blocked a little by the Mountain Laurel growing there, but it was still nice. We stayed that night at Derrick Knob Shelter.On Day 7 we made our way to Double Spring Gap Shelter. The day was chilly and foggy, but overall it wasn¢t too bad. The highlights of the day were all at the shelter. It was full so we were able to pitch our tents and camp outside! (I much prefer the tent over a shelter). This is the highest elevation we¢ve slept at and there were some really cool pines intermingled with the ¢normal¢ trees we¢ve become accustomed to seeing. There are deer that live near the shelter and they¢re so used to humans being around them that they come pretty close to the shelter to graze. Hopefully people won¢t screw them up like the bears at the fenced shelters, but I¢m not going to hold my breath on that hope. The water source here is pretty cool too. It¢s located right on the edge of the ridge near the shelter and has one of the coolest views I¢ve seen so far. You step down onto a rock ledge where the springs pools up and can filter your water there pretty easily. A few feet you at the edge of the ledge though, and you get to see a drop-off a few hundred feet down into the valley. It felt like I was perched on the side of a mountain waterfall just before the spot where it plunges down the cliff into the forest below. Very cool!Day 8 was Clingman¢s Dome, the highest point on the entire Appalachian Trail. The day was a little foggy and overcast but it cleared up enough for us to take in some great views from time to time. The climb up was the long and hard, and then down the other side was no cakewalk either. We pulled a long day and made it down to Indian Gap for a quick ride home to shower and get some laundry done, and of course to eat.We¢re getting ready to head back out to Indian Gap now and complete the next 30 miles or so of the Park. I¢ll do better with the journal entries this time, but it may be a while since the cell service is spotty at best. It looks we¢re heading into Blackberry Winter too, so maybe there¢ll be snow!!