Date: 2003-03-19
From: derrick knob shelter

To: mt. collins shelter
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: overcast clouds

day 18gorgeous walk all day today. it was raining for most of the day and it was a bit on the chilly side as well, but the forest was beautiful. the grasses as well. they have this golden tone that makes them look like blonde hair or the hair of a camel. the trail was a little tricky at times, specifically while making my way up to clingmans dome. you see, it's a very narrow trail. i'd say only a foot wide, so you have to step kinda of funny to walk through it.very quiet today. made it to the very nice silers bald shelter and had a snack there while reading the register. the shelter was renovated in '91 and now includes a covered porch with benches and shelf to cook at, as well as some sky lights (kinda) at the porch roof-shelter roof junction. after hanging out for a bit i headed out and had another quiet, foggy walk. there was dew everywhere and little water dropplets hanging off of just about everything. got to double springs shelter and still hadn't seen anyone. had lunch and headed out.right before getting to double springs shelter (maybe 100 yards or so), there's a sign posted on a tree that reads something like "bears are active in this area." now we all know that the smokies are filled with bears, but i hadn't seen one yet and i hadn't seen a sign like this before either, so after reading it, it finally sinks and i start getting a little nervous. i'm in bear country!now i'm not afraid or anything, but i do start running through my head what i should do in case i do see one, and more importantly, if it sees me. not only that, i also begin practicing staying more alert of my surroundings.i'm walking now through a lot of blow downs. there are some serious winds going on and some of the trail is a little scary as far as bears are concerned. there's a lot of blind turns where you can't see the other side of the turn. and i'm thinking to myself, these are perfect spots for bears to just be waiting there ready to sneak up on you. naturally nothing like that happens and i end up making it to the very wet, windy, foggy summit of clingmans dome only having seen a few weekenders, but no bears.the walk up to clingmans was interesting though. the rain and wind had picked up considerably a couple of miles south of it and up to that point i'd only been wearing my short-sleeve shirt. well i know that i'm a little chilly, but i still feel fine, and the truth about it is that i don't want to take the trouble to take off my pack and pull out my fleece and rain jacket. well at one point i go to stretch my arms a little by pulling them back and all of the sudden i feel this numbing tingling in my hands and forearms. now i know that's not good so i put down my stuff and take care of business.by the time i got to clingmans the wind was blowing at a constant 20-30mph with gusts probably up to 50mph. it was rocking. i would jab my left pole at almost a 90 degree angle at whatever was to the left of me just to stay on my feet at some places. it was envigorating! and the rain. because of the gusts, the rain would come at you in these waves, in these sheets of rain that you could actually see and time. it was awesome. so what i began to do is that if there was an exposed portion of trail ahead of me, i'd wait by the side of a tree, time the wave, and then move quickly across to the other side. it was great.having seen, or rather, not seen clingmans, i began to make my long, time-consuming descent to my home for the night. i had to be very careful at times because everything was wet and there was the very real possibility that you could slip on just about anything. oh, i almost forgot. on top of clingmans i saw snow. i remember walking and seeing this white stuff on the ground and i'm like "what is this?" i could hardly believe it, which in retrospect did make sense. we're above 6000' and it's still winter and it's pretty cold up here. so no, it shouldn't of surprised me. a wooden trail juntion sign that was completely uprooted despite the fact that at one point it had been securely inserted into the ground and then had rocks piled around it as a support base also shouldn't of surprised me. but that one in fact didn't. the wind was really blowing and i could imagine how this thing got pulled out of the ground.i finally made it to the shelter feeling pretty tired after the very long descent and the .5 mile side-trail walk to the shelter that was the last straw. just kidding, although any time you walk .5 off the trail it's pretty far. i was also a little chilled at this point from everything of mine being almost completely soaked. the cheap old navy rain jacket that'd i'd purchased for something like $10 bucks had indeed lost all it's water repellency. it was just a thin piece of soaked-through nylon clinging to my fleece. my patagonia fleece on the other hand hadn't done me wrong. it was still completely dry on the inside.soon after i arrived malkovich showed up. he said that he'd been on my tracks ever since silers bald shelter when he saw me departing at a distance as he was coming in. after hiking all day behind my footprints, he said he had them pretty figured out. i walked another .2 or so to get to the water source behind the shelter. it was a long, wet, rocky walk, but the spring is gorgeous. absolutely clean and it's piped by a piece of carved wood. basically it's a stick that has been split in half making a half moon down it's length with the water running through it. gorgeous! there aren't too many of these on the trail with that kind of piping, but i always thought how much more natural it looked than white pcv or metal piping.having unpacked and put on my dry thermal underwear and dry pair of socks, i got myself some dinner in order. shortly after a weekender arrived who decided to set up his tent. yes, he knew it was raining and that it was gonna rain some more, but he enjoyed his tent so he went out back and set up. he came back into the shelter and talked with us for a bit and shortly after a sobo showed up. the third i've met so far. this was ronnie from israel, and boy that guy was a trip. scruffy looking guy who'd been on the trail for something like 7 months. like the other two sobos that i'd met at that point, he'd also done a lot of side trails, including the long trail and was actually planning on doing the pct after finishing this hike, which i thought was nice. me already having the pct in my heart and all.ronnie was funny. he didn't try to be funny as through jokes and all, it was just the way he said things and the things that he said. his accent helped out matters a lot as well. we had a great time and i drilled him like crazy. i cooked us up some pasta, my second dinner, and ended up giving him some peanut butter and jelly that i had left over. i'm picking up a mail drop tommorrow in gatlinbug so i'm good. when i offered him dinner and then the food later, he would say something like, "look at me. i'm a thur-hiker. have you ever met a thru-hiker that turned down food?" and no, i really hadn't to tell you the truth. it's just something that you really don't do. sure i've done it, but the occasions are rare. ronnie cracked me up. i'm laughin right now just remembering this stuff.so ronnie and i talk for hours. he tells me some of his adventures, including a 19-zero day stint that he did at partnership shelter. i'm like, "19 days, holy sh*t ronnie, what the hell were you doing?" he said he got tired of the snow and just decided to chill for a bit. he said that the food is real cheap in the town of marion, va and that since the road is only 200 yards from the shelter, it was ideal as a winter-break resort. that and the fact that the shelter is gorgeous and you can order pizza and beer to it. so he was all set up at the partnership. (the partnership is only about 300 miles north of here at this point). he also told me how he'd been shelter hammocking the whole way here at the shelters that are "hammock friendly." "what the hell are you talking about ronnie?" so he shows me. ronnie has been setting up his hammock in the shelters using the support beams. and since he's been winter-sobo'ing, there really arent' that many people to get in his way. that is "until now" i tell him. and i warn him about the masses that he'll surely run into until the end of his hike.we shoot it for a bit more. ronnie tells me how he also sleeps with his food inside of his hammock and how the mice caught on to him. he said that the mice are really intelligent and can do all kinds of acrobatic feats. i ask him about rain gear. he tells me that for him there's only one way to go. the pancho. it's lightweight, breathable, customizable, cheap, and absolutely, without fail--waterproof. i decide to convert. the night getting late, we say goodnight.