Date: 2006-03-24
From: Derrick Knob Shelter

To: Newfound Gap (rt441)
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: light snow

It seemed that it was a little warmer overnight at Derrick Ridges Shelter, but it was snowing all night. Doug built a fire in the inside fireplace and Goldie Locks and Bags gathered a bunch of fire wood. When I went to sleep there was a roaring fire going, but all the heat just went up the chimney. You couldn¢t feel any heat at all where I was but it looked and sounded wonderful. We had 4-6 inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing when we came out for the next leg of the hike.Rosie and Dr. Jones were the first to hike out of the shelter with Chee-B and I not too far behind. We didn¢t eat breakfast in order to get a 7:45 am start. I ate various bars all day long. I started with two quarts of water, one in my Hydration system and one in my bottle. Of coarse the hose on the hydration system froze up and was worth zero. After a short time we caught up with the leaders and Chee-B decided to take the lead and break trail. I followed and off we went. She broke trail for many miles until some southbounders came along and from there on we had their tracks to follow. For a little girl with a big backback, Chee-B could surely hike. The extra effort of pushing thru the snow adds up over many miles. When we reached the Double Spring Gap shelter we met the Ridge Runner. He strongly suggested that we keep on going until we get off the trail at Newfound Gap, particularly Doug and Jay who had soaking wet feet by this time. He told us not to go down the trail from Clingman¢s Dome because it was solid ice under the snow and very hazardous. That would make it an 18 mile hike. I said I couldn¢t do it no matter what, but with their encouragement all went well. We had some major mountains to climb the worst of coarse was Clingman¢s Dome at 6643 feet. We went up on the observation tower when we got there and it was a blizzard with total white out. I couldn¢t get a cell phone call out as I had hoped so off we went down the road. The road was steep and hard causing a bone jarring at every step. We averaged about 4 ¢ 4 12 miles per hour down the 7 mile road with several falls due to ice along the way. Doug and his son were doing a section hike and had a car waiting at Newfound Gap. What a break, by then (5:25pm) highway 441 over the mountain and thru the gap was closed due to ice and snow. The only traffic was outbound. The vehicle was a New Lincoln Navigator and it was just the ticket for getting a bunch of weary hikers down the last 15 miles to Gatlinburg, Tenn. Doug drove it like an old pro and took us right to a hiker friendly motel, the Grand Prix. All the hiker (cheap) rooms were taken and we took the only two regular rooms left. We went out to Dinner right away because if we stopped and showered we would fall asleep. The rib-eye was perfect and we were happy but really stinky. So it was back to the motel for a quick shower and bed. A truly amazing day in all ! I know I will be talking about it for the rest of my life. Looking back we made real good time considering the snow, ice and major mountains, 18 miles in 9.5 hours. No breaks or meals helped.