Date: 2010-11-15
From: TriCorner Knob Shelter

To: Gatlinburg, TN
Miles today: 16.6
Weather: light rain

We woke up to fog. Wet fog. My heels had quit getting better and were sore to the touch. I optimistically wrapped them and stuck my feet in my boots that I bought in Hot Springs. I was already missing the meshy, holey boots I'd left with Scout at Elmer's. Without a single view, I hiked for a few miles before I was literally wincing with every step as I felt the skin get rubbed away from my heels. Giving up, I took off my boots and changed into my trusty crocs. I attached the shoes to my pack and kept on walking. With zero tread, slippery trail, and now an extra-heavy pack, the conditions were not in my favor for the day.Eventually it began raining, later pouring, and finally settled on giving hikers drenching buckets of icy water. Nothing could have kept me dry in that weather. Each time I reached the edge of a ridge, I glanced at the endless white and wondered what the view would have been. I shudder to think how close I was to the edge of some of those ridges. Near Charlies Bunion (surprise! No view!) I began to lose my mind. My feet were long since soaked in ice-cold rain water, the relentless wind and rain had whipped my face and hands raw, and I could squeeze water out of everything I was wearing. I sobbed loudly and often out of misery. I met a dude hiking north, clearly on a dayhike, who must have heard me sob and probably thought I was nuts. He would be right.Being at elevations of 5,000-6,000 feet during terrible weather like that made me realize a few things:1) Yes, Maine really was as bad as I remember. All those rainy mountains were just as miserable as I've made them out to be.2) Crocs are amazing. Absolutely the best. If I did not have Crocs, my broken body would have eventually been found somewhere around Mt. Chapman.3) Hiking through these mountains in thunder would be absolutely terrifying.4) I love the North Carolina-Tennessee border even if it sometimes hates me.Karma and I rendezvoused at Icewater Spring Shelter. I was shivering and miserable. Our options were either to stay and try to warm up, or to hike another three miles to a road to Gatlinburg. We had planned to resupply there anyway, and the idea of being just a few miles from heat was too good to pass up. Plus, realistically, everything I owned was wet. Not even my raincover could keep it out.The next three miles were mostly downhill, and knowing that at the end there would be a chance at being dry . . . it was incentive. We reached the parking lot and to my surprise there were several cars there. Very little traffic on the road indicated that it would be a tough hitch to Gatlinburg, which was about 15 mountain-miles away.I hung out for awhile (Karma was in the bathroom for shelter at the time. I knew he was somewhere.) and decided that desperate times definitely called for desperate measures. When the dayhiker who heard me sob emerged from the woods, I offered him some money if he'd let us ride down the mountain with him. He wouldn't take the money, but he dropped us off in Gatlinburg. He probably saved my sanity, and I'm sure he knew it. Cheers to you, whatever your name is, whoever you are -- I was too drenched to soak in any information about you, other than knowing you are wonderful.We each took showers and each ate a large pizza. I hadn't stopped for lunch that day and had burned God only knows how many calories due to cold, exertion, and shivering.The feeling of getting into a hot shower after a cold, icy day in the Smokies, well, that was not just a highlight of the trail. It was a highlight of my life.