Date: 2012-04-17
From: Silar Bald Shelter

To: Cold Spring Shelter
Miles today: 12.1
Weather: light rain

Today started off cool and crisp but sunny with a few high clouds.  I watched the sun rise through the giant oaks and listened from my hammock as a few folks started to get moving for the day.  I miraculously had both data and voice service and wrote an email to my good buddy Darren and my Mom to ask for their help.  I am coming up on the Great Smoky Mountains and am facing some resupply issues.  There is the great town of Gatlinburg but I have heard that the hitch is really hard.  So it's a 75-mile run through the Smokies without a resupply.  To make matters worse, they restrict you to staying only in the shelters so your daily mileage has to take on discrete values.  My plan is to make big mileage days and drop some weight beforehand.  My sleeping bag is too warm, my pad system is going to be replaced at Fontana Dam by the fabled underquilt, my jacket is overkill for the conditions, and it would be nice to be able to trade my 10-ounce tent for my hammock.  I sent the emails out with fingers crossed hoping they would be read in time.  The Fontana Dam Post Office is only open M-F 8:30 to 3:00.  Banker's hours.. So if I didn't get them by Friday, I would be spending the weekend at the dam waiting for Monday.  This would be ok but I would have to play catch-up if I ever wanted to hang with the great  people I have been sharing the trail with who happened to be having their own oatmeal party at the moment and I didn't want anything to do with it.  That smell!  Time to dry things off in the sun and pack up.  I wasn't even a half mile out of camp before I needed to take off my tights.  Just as I am about to do the deed, Johnny Walker Red comes into view and we have an awkward but entertaining conversation about naked dudes at his military school.  I eventually pass him up as he is applying sunscreen for day.  I walk solo for hours, which is odd considering how many people we had at camp the previous night.  I eventually reached Wayah Bald which has a stone observation tower dedicated to the life of John B. Byrne.  I met up with Jenna, Mange, Wild Bill, and Cheetah there and we ate lunch together at the top of the tower.  You could see the previous observation tower off in the distance from mile 100.  Just a tiny speck as big, menacing clouds filled the sky.  We talked about a ton of things and I told them about a brewery in Gatlinburg I wanted to visit and they told me about a new shuttle they had heard about. Cha-ching!  I left a little before everyone and filtered at a small trickle of a stream down the trail.  Wild Bill and Mange passed me up half way through the process and I figured I would see them down the road.  I kept walking and found an exposed ridgeline that had coverage and checked email real quick.  Both Darren and my Mom were going to be able to ship things for me!  I was on cloud nine but before I could finish my thank you responses, the thunder cracked right above my head.  The storm continued to escalate and I ran down the trail off the ridge.  As I retreated into the forest, the sky opened up.  Rain fell with a force unlike anything you have probably ever seen.  It was easily an order of magnitude worse than the seasonal storms I had seen in China and Hong Kong.  I had my Packa on already and was thankful because if you weren't ready for that, you wouldn't have had a chance.  And it got worse.  The trail was instantly a river that was ankle-deep and rising.  And then the hail came; they were the size of gumballs and I took refuge under a tree.  Not the best idea in a thunder storm but the hail hurt and that was guaranteed pain.  Around the corner of the tree and behind me came this dark, fast but erratic-moving shape and it was moving right for me.  I turned quickly to try and identify the threat and protect myself but it turned out to be the Professor wearing a poncho over his head and pack.  We decided to make a break for it ad the storm wasn't letting up.  The next shelter was several miles away and we busted our butts and got there in a little over an hour.  I had water in my sleeves.  My shorts were soaked.  My socks and shoes might never dry.  But we were safe inside the shelter and there was plenty of space - only two others were there.  My thoughts immediately went to Wild Bill and Mange.  Had they passed this shelter up?  The next one was six miles away!  And the trail to that shelter spent over a mile above 5000 feet.  I didn't want to think about the horrors they were experiencing.  This shelter slept six but the floor was broken and only had space for five.  Cheetah showed up next and wanted to move on but we talked him out of it since we had one space left.  Jenna rolled in a few minutes later and was going to set up her tent.  She ultimately chose otherwise, thankfully since it was miserable out there. The detective showed up a bit later and we were way out of space.  Two other women showed up a bit later but we couldn't turn them away in a storm like that.  It was going to be a full house.  The storm raged on and we fit everybody.  The detective hung his hammock up so we would have more floor space but the energy was really weird and tense.  Everybody cooked, cleaned up and was turning in when all of a sudden Wild Bill and Mange show up singing the tale of their wrong turn woes to the tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire theme song.  So awesome! Wild Bill fit in a tiny space next to me and this guy with a huge sleeping pad.  He didn't want to disturb anyone so he didn't bother with his pad or sleeping bag.  There was some commotion from when the guy sleeping next to me got up to pee a few hours later and one if the women freaked out thinking we were being attacked by a bear.  Ridiculous.  Bears are smart.  It's raining.  The are all hunkered down somewhere warm and dry.  Lady, you are crazy.  But this is when I discovered Wild Bill's awful state.  I begged him to grab his bag at least and take one of my mats.  Note that the Mangy Beaver set up his tent.  Outside.  In the rain. And he slept in it.  Without his sleeping bag.  Because he didn't want it to get wet.  He had enough of that and used the commotion as an opportunity to get his bag too.  What a crummy miserable night.  But I learned something about those guys.  They don't complain, they worry about disturbing others, and they were grateful for what they had.