Date: 2012-06-07
From: Clingmans Dome

To: Ice Water Springs
Miles today: 10.9

The sound of the garbage trucks woke me up at 5:15. Last time that should happen for a while.I ate my leftover pizza from the Smoky Mountain Brewery and went to Dunkin Donuts for iced coffee. No Dunkin Dark in Gatlinburg. I was waiting in the lobby for my shuttle pick-up and and the desk lady was telling some guests that her daughter worked in Washington, DC. Then a detailed discussion started about how you can't find any decent food up north. First point of conversation was biscuits, then went on to sweet tea. One man was talking about his experience in a state he pronounced as "Massatoosits". At the end, the desk lady said " well isn't the point of travel to try new things" - well put!Vesna from A Walk in the Woods picked me up and we were off. My original plan was to pick up where I left off in 2009 at Newfound Gap. Unfortunately, one of shelters I made a reservation at was closed for bear activity so I had to rearrange my itinerary. I changed my starting point to Clingmans Dome, which is the highest point on the ATWhen I was at Clingmans Dome last time, I arrived there after hiking for 3 weeks and was in culture shock by the number of people and how clean they were. Also I was amazed by how much they were complaining about the walk from the parking lot.So I got dropped off in the parking lot and went up the path to see what all the fuss was about. The walk WAS steep, but it was paved and only a half mile.Went up to the tower, but even though the air quality was excellent, the visibility wasn't great because the clouds were lying the valleys.I strapped on my pack for the official start, walked about 10 steps, and overheard someone say "a mama bear and 2 cubs just went down that trail". So 3 guys came my way to take photos. We saw a cub standing up in the trail and eventually mama came gliding across the trail. The guys were taking pics like crazy and I'm sure they were fantastic but I didn't want to stop watching the bears to mess around with a camera. The guys turned around and while they were chit-chatting, I saw the second cub pop up from the ferns. So then I had to go down the hill basically following the bear family. Yikes! I looked at the place the mama had just walked through and it was really thick under brush. A human would have made a racket walking through but she was completely soundless.I remembered that in 2009 I hiked to the Mount Collins shelter to stay for the night and just thought that stretch of trail was miserable and it seemed to take forever. I thought maybe I had just been tired and crabby and this time I might have a better attitude. Nope, still hated it. The trail was just a jumble of rocks and roots. It was pretty slow going, and I was pausing at every corner to check for bears. Other than that, hiking conditions were ideal. Partly sunny and about 60 F. Beautiful arboreal forest with a nice pine scent.I met a group heading south and they warned me that they thought they ran into a mama bear with 2 cubs - maybe heard some grunting? By the timing, it had to be a different mama from the one I saw, but later the other hikers I met up with were talking about THE mama and 2 cubs and that they had growled at the hikers. (kinda kept getting exaggerated)The hike eventually got better and I got to Newfound Gap at 4 pm. Had something to eat and some Gatorade and continued on . Finally started on a part of the AT I haven't been on before!I had one of the ground-nesting birds (warblers? juncos?) fly at my feet. A guy was coming towards me at I said "want to see something cool?" and showed him the nest with the baby birds in it. Saw another Nest with birds a short time later.Plenty of folks at the shelter - some section hikers, some multi-day hikers, and a couple finishing their southbound thru-hike from last year.One woman looked kind of familiar, but I figured she was that hippie-ish hiker type. Then she said she had thru-hiked in 2010, and that her name was Serentina, and I knew I had met her before. We finally figured out it might have been at the Blackburn Trail Center on Hike Naked Day (June 21). Not a huge coincidence since AT hikers are a small community, but still...Had planned for this trip with the brutal heat of Virginia in July in mind, so even with my tights and sweater on I was shivering. Had to get under my quilt and worked on my journal until my hands got too cold.