Date: 2016-05-03
From: ice water shelter

To: tri corner knob shelter
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: moderate rain

Day 22- May 3, 2016Dregs woke me up this morning in the shelter at about 6:30am. I took my ear plugs out and the choir of snores filled my ears. Not how I wanted to wake up and I really just wanted to go back to sleep. After about 30 minutes, I crawled out of my sleeping bag and started to get ready for the day. It was gray and wet out with thick fog. Not many people had gotten up yet and the shelter had at least 17-20 people in it and another 6 tents right out front. It was suppose to hold 12 people all together. We headed out hoping for a 13 mile day over easy terrain. The real challenge was going to be the forecast of all day rain. As we started, I tried to avoid stepping in all of the streams of water and squishy mud. It took me about a mile to really realize that I was already soaked and it didn't make a difference if I walked right through or not. My feet were so completely wet that not long after we started I needed to stop and sit on a wet log to tape up both of my feet all the way to prevent blisters that were already forming. Dregs was frustrated with me at first cause he really wanted me to take care of my feet and I felt bad for stopping so frequently at the beginning. He was very patient as he stood in the cold rain for a long time not moving. I also had to tape two toes together so I wouldn't step on them and rip the toenail off. Once I got taped up, we got going again and were able to move much quicker with less pain. We got to an overlook called Charlie's Bunion, which dregs has been looking forward to for as long as we've been planning our hike. It is supposed to be one of the best views the smokies have to offer and when we got there all we saw was a wall of fog. A blinding white wall of fog so thick you couldn't see past the bushes that lined the trail. It was such a disappointment for him and I felt so bad because he had been talking about it for days and here we finally are and there is no view what so ever. Similarly, the whole day was on a ridge line with many great viewing opportunities that we could not see due to the fog. Today we really had to use our silver lining perspective to get through as well as our sense of humor. I began to see the fog as really quite beautiful. It was so dense, vast and blindingly white that I couldn't help but be in awe of it. Each time we passed what would have been an awesome view we would instead gaze at the blinding fog and take it as the great view. I did really enjoy it. We also appreciated the mild terrain with its gradual ups and downs and flats. Dregs also practiced his dad humor with comments such as "we'll just have to go with the flow" as we walked down trenches filled with streams of flowing water that poured over rocks like waterfalls. Overall it was a good day with challenges that we had to overcome together. We stopped at a path that went down to a shelter for lunch and as we were eating, a large branch fell off a tree not far from us. The forest was so moist that it's hard to believe any large trees could survive with the water saturation. We eventually made it to the Tri Corner knob shelter where again, we were the first ones to arrive. We read in the trail register that there was an active bear here and stored that information in our minds. While we were setting up, we heard a noise outside of the tarp that covered the front of the shelter. Dregs went over to investigate cautiously and when he looked out he called me over. I peered around the corner and there we saw a very perturbed squirrel standing right in front of us. He stared at us and then started squeaking at us viciously as if we had intruded on his home. He ran up a pole and continued to squeak at us. It was absolutely adorable. We ate first dinner at 2pm which was our first time trying mountain house freeze dried meals. They were great. We were given two of the meals by a lady who I let use my phone charger the night before and she was obviously grateful. More people started to arrive and after awhile we had another full house. We socialized and snaked for awhile before setting in for bed. Tomorrow we may attempt our longest day yet. Pray for a good night sleep with only light snoring.