Date: 2008-04-15
From: Green Corner (Waterville) Rd

To: Junction with Chestnut Branch Trail
Miles today: 3.5

Monday, April 14, 2008Travel day.We leave Bears Den about 7:30AM, stopping shortly afterwards for coffee and to figure out today¢s travel logistics.About 5PM we arrive at Davenport Gap Bear Creek Ranger Station where we fill out registration forms and deposit them in the receptacle. It takes me an hour or so to go through what¢s in the Element that I¢ll be needing over the next 9 days and pack it in Grey Feather¢s car. Goodbye, ole Element, until April 24.We call Purple Rose. She¢s still planning to pick us up at Fontana Dam on Friday.Our latest plan is for Randy to join us for a hike or 2 north of Davenport Gap, once we¢ve finished the Smokies.On our way to Gatlinburg in Grey Feather¢s car, we drive into -- a SNOWSTORM.Using one of those cost-cutting travel-guide coupons, we check into a comfortable $40-per-night motel in Gatlinburg, elevation 1292 feet. Wonder what the snow is like at Newfound Gap, 5045 feet, or on Clingman¢s, 6643?Memere and Grey Feather unload all their food on one of the beds, the 3 of us as excited and giggly as pre-teens. It looks like a grocery store in here, especially Grey Feather¢s stash. We set aside food for a 4-day backpack, and store the rest.In our early days of hiking together, whenever we took a motel room with 2 double or queen-size beds, Grey Feather and Memere would share one, and they¢d give me the other. After all, when we first started hiking together, they¢d only known me 11 minutes. Now that we¢re old friends, we¢re like sisters. Sleeping spots are allocated more democratically. We rotate who gets to sleep solo and who shares a bed.   M-m-m-m, the comfort of a heated motel room. I get the solo bed. Goodnight.Tuesday, April 15, 2008Green Corner Rd to Chestnut Branch Trail, 3.5 milesAt Park HQ we learn that 441, the road from Gatlinburg to Cherokee is closed due to snow. Naturally the road from Newfound Gap to Clingman¢s is too. Snowplows will first concentrate on clearing Gatlinburg to Cherokee. Only after that¢s fully open to traffic will they start on the road from Newfound Gap to Clingman¢s Dome.OK. Plan B. We explore the HQ exhibits and shop. Memere and Grey Feather buy me a book I¢ve used practically every hiking and journaling day since called ¢Wildflowers of Tennessee, the Ohio Valley and the Southern Appalachians¢, a well-organized gem of a book that includes photos, names, descriptions, etc. and, a favorite of mine, ¢ethnobotany¢, which in this book is the relationship between plants and Native Americans or early European settlers. Lots of tips about what¢s nutritional, medicinal or poisonous.We rework our itinerary. Spence Field isn¢t available at all. We¢ll double up on 2 hikes, which allows us to meet Purple Rose on Friday as planned. We file new reservations at the Backcountry Office.Balance of the day gives us time for a nero from Green Corner Rd to Chestnut Branch Trail, a hike of just 3.5 miles.We drive to Standing Bear Hostel, which is FULL of hikers, Rockhound, covering for Curtis and Maria, Mustang Sally, Rave On, and lots of others. Rave On¢s playing the fiddle. Mellow stuff. Memere wants to hear ¢Shady Rock¢, but no one knows that song. Do you mean ¢Shady Grove¢? No, ¢Shady Rock¢.Memere, I¢m keeping my promise. I¢m not writing in the journal about you ------ -- ---- -----.We eat an early lunch of Queen Diva¢s famous veggie tunafish. How come our larder contains a treasure like that? Queen Diva was hostel-sitting at Bears Den while we were there. And she made it for us, special.We walk down Waterville Rd, turning right at the spray paint and cross the stream, heading into the woods.Hiking southbound as we are today, at this time of year, we meet so many NOBO¢s I don¢t have a chance to get all their names. In the first 2 minutes, hello to 2 young women hiking together, a young man hiking solo, another young man hiking solo.Blooming dogwood and redbud, tiny neonatal leaves on trees, forest floor green with ephemerals, fiddleheads, Memere is first to spot a yellow trillium, then all of us see more of them, white vetch, anemone, star chickweed, fire pink, Virginia bluebells, first leaves of poison ivy, young ferns, potentilla, leaves of dwarf iris, mountains in the background, temp 50¢s, birdsong, Southern Appalachian spring.Great stone staircase leading out of the woods north of I40. Beautiful trail work.What are those unfamiliar trees along the roadside? Native to western China, the invasive Princesstree (Pawlonia tomentosa). Its fruits are woody capsules that rend to release up to 20,000,000 seeds per tree.At the intersection, where more light reaches the ground, there are fleabane, buttercups, and grass high enough for mowing.12:50 pass under I40. We¢ve got time to dawdle today.Tent caterpillars in their tents on trees that aren¢t yet leafed out.White trilliums. Ragwort. Purple violets. Meadow parsnip. White violets. Foamflower, Solomon seal and false SS. A blooming Cucumber-tree (magnolia acuminata). Trailing arbutus just finishing up blooming.Hello to a mom, dad and little daughter.Swallowtail sucking wild geranium nectar.At Davenport Gap Shelter, we sign the register, get spring water, and meet Mozzie from Homestead FL and Sprite (formerly Mammoth) from MN. Mozzie points out a pair of bluebirds foraging in front of the shelter.We leave the AT and hike 2 miles out to the ranger station over gentle well-maintained Chestnut Branch Trail. Beautiful wildflowers.Dogtooth violets, pattern and color of the leaves resembling the yellow trillium.Mountain lettuce, growing close to the stream, and sedum. We will have a mountain lettuce story a little later.Out at ranger station 4:50. Early hello to the Element. We retrieve Grey Feather¢s car from Standing Bear and reset the Element back at the ranger station. Laying groundwork for this hike's game of "Lost and Found", we move more of the stuff in it to Grey Feather¢s car. We need room in the Element for 4 people, us plus Purple Rose, when all of us come out on April 24, Dinner at the Alamo, m-m-m BEEF. Stop at Food Lion for some last minute fresh food.Someone, not me, is snoring. I tape it for the day that I can add audio to this journal. : -)))   Goodnight