Date: 2005-04-02
From: Double Springs Shelter

To: Grand Prix Motel in Gatlinburg, TN
Miles today: 3.5
Weather: moderate rain

Today was a real doosy ! This was an April 2nd to remeber. Only about 3.5 miles from Double Springs to Clingmans Dome. Took me 3 1/2 hours !! Let me explain. The rain stopped yesterday about 6pm, so we thought the worst of the weather was over. Afterall, two days of cold, wind and rain was enough. But nooooooooo! Last night about 9pm it started raining again, only really hard this time. Thunder, lightening and all. It didn't let up till about 6am.....when it turned to snow. By the time I got out of the shelter at 8am ( that is a story all its own ) there was about two inches of fresh snow on the soggy trail. The temp had dropped to 25 degrees when the snow started and the wind started to pick up, out of the west. We had heard from some kids on spring break that they had predicted flurries on and off for today in the mountains. Well, by the time I had been picking my way carefully down the trail for an hour, there was 4 inches of snow and the wind was howling. Another hour and there was 6 inches with even more wind. The temp was in the low 20s now. Not exactly sure of the correct temp because my glasses were covered with ice. By the time I finally got to Clingmans Dome, there was a solid 8 inches of snow with gale force winds. Guess I should have expected that at 6643 ft. things wouldn't be any better than they were 1000 ft. lower. Well, I remembered that they opened the road to the Dome parking lot on April 1st, yesterday, and they have a restroom building there that should also be open. So being just a little worried that I would soon turn into a popsickle, I hurried down the .5 mile path to the parking area.......and the restrooms were open!! Not heated, but open and I rushed in out of the wind. Spent about 1/2 hour there gathering my wits and eating lunch before deciding to walk down the smooth!access road 7 miles to Newfound Gap where I thought I could hitch a ride into Gatlinburg. Afterall, I didn't need to be hiking in an all out blizzard with a bum ankle. Had almost gone down several times already stepping on stuff I couldn't see beneath the snow. As luck would have it, there was one Honda van in the parking lot with a church group of kids that had come down off the mountain after an overnight trip. They were half frozen since none of them had cold weather gear. Just as they had gotten the windshield defrosted, they saw me walking by on my way down the road and offered a ride into town. I didn't want to disappoint them so I stuffed myself and my gear in the back and we headed down to town. Now, the other folks I had been hiking with were still out there somewhere on the trail trudging thru foot deep snow drifts and wind chill numbers I can only guess. Yes.....I did feel a little guilty about riding in a warm van down into town, but not enough to turn down the ride. Anyway, when we got down a few thousand feet and at the entrance to the Smokie Mountain National Park, the rangers were stopping all traffic going up to where we had come from and making them turn around and go back because the storm was so bad they were closing the road. We told them about the hikers we knew were still up on the trail and the rangers organized some heavy equipment to go up and get them. Think there were 12 hikers in all that they brought down this afternoon. All very glad to be out of that insanity of a storm up on the mountain. The ranger told us the weather prediction for today and tonight up there was for at least another foot of snow, temp down to zero degrees tonight with gale force winds. None of us hikers were equipt for that extreme situation so we are all glad to be sitting in our motel rooms drying off and getting some warmth back in our feet and hands.Don't expect the road to the trail to open tomorrow either so my ankle gets another day of rest....and it really needs it after today. Still not sure I can continue, but have another day till I have to decide.This is one day I will not soon forget and am very glad I survived to tell about. RIC   aka...Vitaman