Date: 2007-12-25
From: Home

To: Silers Bald Shelter
Miles today: 12.5
Weather: overcast clouds

mi. 12.5sleep shelterdest. Silers Bald Shelter day 165 Christmas, Christmas time is here.Time for love and time for cheer.We've been good, but we've been bad.Hurry Christmas hurry back.Once I did a loop-de-loop.Me I want a Hool-a-hoop.We came hardly stand and wait please Christmas don't delay. That Christmas carol has been in my head for the last few days. Being Christmas I figured I would share it my favorite Christmas song with everyone the best I can remember. Once again another town stop where we were up really late. So later getting up late followed by a contimental breakfest, we were headed back to the trail. Nothing says Christmas like hitch hiking into a national park. We went to the main drag and stuck out our thumbs. We were planning on making a sign, but didn't get around to it. The whole time Oblivious was saying can on no pick-ups. So of course after only a couple minutes a pick-up pulled over. Another local using the road through the park. Tourons never pick anyone up. It was just a little cold on the 15 mile ride up to the gap. It was cool to look at all the scenery along the way. Everyone was giving us funny looks. Maybe 3 hikers in the back of a truck on Christmas look strange to some people. We got dropped off and headed south around 11:30 or so. There was a decent number of people at the overlook and driving around. But there was no one on the trail. Once we got on the trail we didn't see anyone else the rest of the day. The trail did have a good amount of ice on it. Luckily it wasn't continuous over the whole trail. I was able to find ways around most of the ice. I could see wanting some Yaktracks or instep crampons or something if the temp dropps real low continuously up here. Just before Clingmans dome it started to snow. I was starting to think that maybe I would see a white Christmas. But after a hour or so it stopped. I got up to the top of the concret Ewok tower ontop of Clingmans dome to find Deluxe standing up there. It was great. We were ontop of a tourist lookout tower, off a quarter mile paved path from a parking lot on Christmas and had the whole place to outselves. This is the highest peak on the AT. Only 40 feet lower than Mt Michell the highest point on the east coast. It had great views all around. The clouds were out, but it was amazing. After a short break we headed to the shelter. We got to the first one. It was still early and this one was kind of a dump. Most of the other ones have been renivated lately. This was still in it's 1960's glory. So we decided to head out to the next one that was only 1.9 or less south. It was a good choice to head here. This one is much nicer. Plus it doesn't have the chain link prison fence on it. Even with it raining or snowing we decided that we wanted a fire going. I don't think it matters too much temp wise, it is just nice to have. All I have to say if Esbit solid fuel tablets are killer fire starters. It burns hot for 12 minutes. I lit it and was able to get small sticks going really fast. I am now convinced I will always have a couple in the pack as firestarters. Plus if I run out of fuel I can always cook over it. Now off to bed to enjoy the rest of Christmas. Minus being away from my family, for the first time on the holiday, this has been a pretty good Christmas. I got great surprise gifts yesterday. The hiking today was amazing. Great views over killer terrian. What can I say I'm still lovin every minute.