Date: 2010-12-03
From: Icewater Spring Shelter

To: Double Spring Gap
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: broken clouds

Today we met another natural force of the trail. ICE! As we came down the mountain to Newfound Gap, we found lots of ice on the trail that made our hike tedious and straining. At one point we actually had to get on our bottoms and slide, a little scary when it was a solid sheet of ice over tops of rocks with a fairly steep slope beside us. Fortunately, when we needed to do this, it was only a few feet and there was a space at the bottom with no ice. We both had falls, Lonnie on this side of the gap and me when we were heading up to Clingman's Dome. It made us wonder about the rest of our hike and how much more ice we would encounter. Fortunately, Lonnie only bruised a knee and I an elbow. When we arrived at the gap, the sun was shining and we stopped to have lunch. There were people everywhere. ONe bus load of people came over to us and asked us what we were doing. One woman even took our picture. All we could do was smell all the perfume. Then as we headed up to Clingman's Dome, 7.6 miles from the gap. It felt like we'd never get there. Trying to navigate around the ice seemed to take forever. Mt. Love had a lot of rocks to maneuver over but the ice was spotty, so we always had a dry rock to put a foot on. By the time we got to the top by the tower, the road must have been closed, for no one was around. It was 4:00 and both of us were exhausted. The sky had clouded up some but we still had great views. Then we descended down the 2.8 miles to the shelter. This time there was sunny trail with very little ice. Thank you, was all we could say. We arrived at the shelter around 5:00 only to find we weren't alone. I stopped Lonnie just before the clearing and I whispered, "Lonnie, there's a turkey over by the shelter." He asked, "Where?" And I said, "Right in front." Just before this we twice heard something up in the trees as we came down the trail. It sounded like the drumming of wings, so we figured it had to be a big bird. We had seen turkey tracks as well. Now we were seeing one. I took some pictures as we continued to get closer and closer. The turkey didn't seem to care that we were there. Finally when we were right at the shelter, the turkey was still pecking away at the ground, within 3 feet of us. She continued to eat, and then preen her feathers. Lonnie kept saying, "This is not good," especially when I opened the plastic bag to take out the water filter, and the turkey jumped up on a log by the fire pit within two feet where I was sitting to see what I had. We believe this 'wild' turkey has been fed before. I kept telling Lonnie that she will leave to roost in a tree as soon as the sun goes down, and I guess she did. We didn't see her again once it got dark. The air wasn't quite as cold as the night before, but it was still below freezing. We were able to set up our tent in the open space in front of the shelter under the roof. Nice! I'm writing this at 1 am. For some reason, we've both been waking up around 1:00, hungry and wide awake. With all of our food hung up on the bear cables, we have to just not think about eating and more about getting back to sleep. Hopefully soon! It's cold outside. One more night in the Smokey's.