Date: 2005-06-08
From: Fontana Dam, North Carolina

To: Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Miles today: 38.0
Weather: light rain

Dear Everybody:Sorry it's taken me so long to send updates. I know that all of you must sit by your computers, totally entranced, just WAITING for my emails, right? Okay, maybe that's pushing it just a bit!Anyways, I'm still trying to catch up my online journal, but I've added more pictures, so check it out...The last time I emailed, I left off my story at the start of the Smoky Mountains. Geez, that feels like ages ago!! Let me get you caught up on all the craziness...Ben (Peacepipe), Cody, and I were off, and into the Smoky Mountains. Exciting stuff, except for that we didn't quite get our hike started until nearly 7pm! Now that wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact that the hike was a little more than 10 miles, all uphill, with an elevation gain of several thousand feet. Oops. Cue the headlamps, because we're gonna need 'em. Now, at this point in my hike, I was EXTREMELY paranoid about the prospect of being eaten alive by an angry bear. Know two things about black bears: 1) there is a higher concentration of them in the Smokies than anywhere else in North America, and 2) they love to come out when it's cool, namely dawn and dusk, but especially after dark. I was gonna die, and I knew it! Ben and Cody were off like lightning, sprinting up hills, and out of sight. I was meandering through the woods, in the dark, with a headlamp that thinks every night is a rave (the strobe-light effect that it performs is not even a feature that it's supposed to have! It just flickers off and on whenever it feels like it!). I thought I'd never see them again. I was rushing so much that I dropped my beloved Red Sox hat somewhere along the trail, and didn't even realize it until later; I'll bet some damned bear is sporting it as we speak. I eventually ran across Ben and Cody, and we decided that hauling ass as fast as humanly possible up the last 4 miles of steep hills (to the nearest shelter, which hikers are REQUIRED to use in the Smokies), was in our best interest. After a good bit of this, I was about to tell them to go ahead without me, so I could hurl my guts out, and then realized that we were only about thirty yards from the shelter. Hallelujah! Home free, except for the fact that we realized that there were three sets of eyes staring at us from some nearby trees. Uh-oh. Not bears, but they looked as tall as dogs, and stared intently. We never figured out exactly what they were, and as Ben scared them away, I secretly wondered to myself, could they have been gnomes??At the shelter, we cooked really late, woke several people up (including two ridgerunners, who are the ultimate authority for whatever section of ridge that they run), and generally made asses of ourselves. Good show. The ten miles, all uphill, in the dark, was accomplished in just over three and a half hours. Not too shabby.The next day, we ran across William (Churchyard Drunkard) again, and hiked with him for the day. We took a rest at a shelter called Russell Field Shelter. Now, according to all the hiker gossip and the shelter journals, this place was bear central! To explain the "shelters" on the AT in the Smoky Mountains is easy: three-sided stone cabins with heavy-duty chain link fences on the front of most of them, so as to keep hungry bears out. Some of the shelters have begun removing the chains, leaving the front of the shelters completely exposed. It's more natural, park officials say. The only problem is that what they don't say is that the real reason they're removing them is because idiotic people have been feeding the bears through the fences for years!! Years is just enough time for the word to spread among all the bears. "Hey, if you get really hungry, go scare the crap out of those two-legged clowns in the cages; they'll feed you all kinds of stuff!" So, the bears are coming up to put on a show and get fed, when, much to the bears' surprise, there's no barrier between them and their meal! Who's gonna throw out some fancy growling and snarling song and dance when they can just walk right in and take what they want?! So, you can see the possibility of a problem. Anyways, there's this guy named "Trouble." Cody and I had met him once, back in Georgia, and have hiked with quite a bit since. We had heard stories from lots of people about this thru-hiker who had to tent-camp outside the shelter at Russell Field, because it was full (park rules state that day-hikers and section-hikers get shelter priority; if it's full, thru-hikers get tossed outside). Apparently, a bear had been circling his tent for a while, and he finally decided to get out of his tent and see what was going on. The bear decided to charge him (bears apparently "bluff-charge" quite a bit, pulling away at the last second). Now, at this point, most folks would fall down crying, wet themselves, or both, in unison. This guy, instead, starts running straight back at the charging beast, screaming, "what're you gonna do, bear?!!!" The bear, frightened, apparently ran off into the woods. Later, we found out that this hiking legend was none other than Trouble, who, incidentally, more than lives up to his trail name! From there, the Smokies became quite an interesting journey. At the next shelter, William, Ben, Cody, and I ran into a ridgerunner named Shatter. This guy was a pain in the ass, no bones about it. He accused Ben and I of trying to feed a deer a Snickers bar (if I carry a candy bar up miles of mountains, you can be damn sure that I'm not sharing it with ANYTHING!), he scolded William for trying to sleep outside the shelter and made him sleep inside, he hung a huge bag of trash (trash = wild animal magnet) inside the shelter with us, told William he was an idiot for thinking that elk existed inside the National Park, when, in fact, they do, AND he told me that my trekking pole tips were destroying the trail and the surrounding habitat. All in a day's work for a punk like him. William left us in the dust the next morning (he hikes really fast and has a super-light pack), and Ben, Cody, and I were off again. This time, the destination was Clingman's Dome, the highest point on the entire Appalachain Trail, at 6,643 feet. They have an observation tower there, and the views are awesome in all directions. We planned on stopping there, watching the sunset, then hiking 4 more miles to the next shelter. The best laid plans...We got there near sunset, finding nearly 50 people in a space that probably could've comfortably fit 10. Then, add three stinky hikers to that cramped space. THAT was priceless! People's faces, as they caught wind of us, was sooo funny! It was bitterly cold up there, and we were soaked with sweat, so it made it that much worse. We decided to break out our campstoves, and start cooking, right there. People had already been asking the typical "thru-hiker" questions, but this amazed them. Cameras started rolling and snapping as Ben and Cody stirred their Ramen Noodles. Later, I got into the act, and chowed down as well. People actually asked us to take bites of our food, so they could get "action shots" of us! Nuts! Soon after an amazing sundown, Ben declared that he was going to sleep on the dome. It's against park regulations, and although I wasn't worried about that, it WAS friggin' cold up there!! Cody and I walked down a road about a mile to the tourist parking lot, where we debated sleeping in a really stinky public bathroom, just because it was warmer. Sense got the better of us, and back up we went. We slept well, and found out that our sleeping bags are way better than we thought. We awoke to a beautiful sunrise, and some guy with a tripod filming it; he was cool, and didn't seem to mind us being there. We packed up our stuff, and got a record-early start to our day, only because moving around was the best way not to freeze our butts off!! We decided to knock about 3 or 4 miles of trail off, and hitch-hike into Gatlinburg before Newfound Gap (a really touristy place where we would have had to hitch into Gatlinburg from). With thumbs out, we managed to flag down a zooming and swerving 1980-something Pontiac Sundance. Now, if you're familiar with this model, it's REAL small. The kicker? All three of us AND our packs had to fit in the back seat! The driver's name was Matt, and the girl in the passenger seat called herself Tomorrow. They said that they had also just come from Clingman's Dome; apparently, they had decided that an early morning "rendezvous" on top of the dome was a good way to start the day. Thank God we didn't have to wake up to THAT! We left just in time, BEFORE they got there! This guy was swerving down the mountain roads, and he was bragging about it! Then, he had a moment, and pulled over. He apologized, saying that his vision was blurry, because he had been drinking for several days straight. He let the girl drive, and it was cool to know that I would live to see another day...hopefully.We arrived at his "place" in Gatlinburg, just off the main strip through town. Matt, it appeared, was "king of the squatters" in this town. "Squatters," for those unfamiliar, are people who kind of just stay wherever they can find a floor that's open. In this case, there were way too many 15-17 year old girls, running around stoned, drunk, half-naked, or all three. Some had babies, and some of the babies were living in the motel. One was 3 months old, and the mom's idea of good parenting was smoking her weed in another room, away from the baby, who was just left laying in the middle of the bed. American values at their finest, I tell you.Matt extended us the best hospitality he could offer, then retreated to drink a fifth of Crown Royal and a 12-pack of Miller Lite. Should've had the High Life. He re-emerged soon after, REALLY drunk. He then took us to a local microbrewery, and bought us two rounds of beer. He must have had 4 more beers there! His current girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend (apparently the ex is the one he took up to Clingman's Dome) came to get him from the brewery, and things didn't look good. We saw him come back in to the brewery, about 45 minutes later, looking nervous. He asked the bartender for a back door, then disappeared. Five minutes later, the cops came in; they kept looking at us! We were ready to bolt if we had to! Apparently, the bartender told the cops that Matt had been with us.We went back to the motel, mainly to get our stuff and get the heck outta dodge. When we arrived, Matt was in the back of a cop car, lookin' pretty angry. He had thrown full beer bottles at both girlfriends, and even some other girl who was holding one of the little babies!! He had also punched several holes in the walls in his motel room, and so the girls that were staying there had to move. Guess who the three good samaritans where that had to help them move all their crap upstairs? Yep, you got it...us! It was so late after all the drama that we also slept on the floor, like squatters, in their room. We had to get up at night and check on the baby, because as far as we could see, mom wasn't quite getting around to it. The next morning, we got out of there as fast as we could, before the cops came again! I didn't even mention the two other times that the cops came to the motel that night, nor did I mention the motel manager that pulled a gun (AND turned a pit bull loose) on some guy who wouldn't leave the parking lot area. This day totally defied explanation. We needed to get back to the trail. It's safer there, for sure. So, without even an inkling of how we were gonna get a ride the 15 or so miles back up to where the trailhead was, we started walking...To be continued...I'd type a little more, but you're already asleep reading this, plus my fingers are tired!!!The above explanation does NOTHING to help you get a picture of this guy; he was whacked out; I don't know how we do it, but if there's a nutcase within 50 miles of the woods, we'll find 'em...Later,CHRIS (aka "LOOFA")