Date: 2018-02-10
From: Newfound Gap, TN

To: Newfound Gap via CharlieÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Bunion, TN
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Yesterday morning, the 9th of February, I was in Boston¢s Logan Airport, taking the first leg of a three-leg trip that delivered me by late afternoon to the town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I spent a night last year in Gatlinburg during my hike of the AT. With its bright lights, cheesy roadside attractions, and crowded sidewalks, it reminded me of a mixture of Coney Island and Las Vegas, minus the super-fancy hotels and casinos. Dolly Parton comes from nearby, which kind of says it all. If you¢d asked me then how soon I¢d be coming back to Gatlinburg I¢d have looked at you in puzzlement.So what has me checking into the River Terrace Resort and Conference Center, just a block away from Gatlinburg¢s Main Street? The folded-up trekking poles in my hand, and the very small backpack that constitutes my only luggage, might be a clue.Last year I left Mt. Springer in Georgia on March 13th, and summited Katahdin on July 28th. I was thrilled to have completed the AT. I filed my 2,000-miler application with the ATC, and duly got my patches and certificate. But I had to keep on suppressing the memory of one minor defect in my thru-hike. When I hiked away from Newfound Gap, the nearest AT trailhead to Gatlinburg, I had come, four miles later, to what some claim is the prettiest viewing point on the whole AT - Charlie¢s Bunion. Now here¢s the thing: to get to Charlie¢s Bunion, you have to hang a left off the AT (if you¢re going north) and the view is a very short walk away. That side trail continues past the viewing point and rejoins the AT, BUT: it rejoins the AT at a different and more northerly point than where you left the AT. So you miss that little ¢Charlie¢s Bunion Bypass¢ section of the AT. This is what happened to me, and it has bugged me ever since. I come from a long and wide line of people in our family who do OCD* stuff like arranging our spices in the pantry in alphabetical order, or putting name labels on our device chargers. So you can understand why my long-suffering wife made not even a mild show of protest when I announced that I was going to fly back to Tennessee before my AT year would be up (on March 12, 2018) to fill in this little gap in my thru-hike; she knows me.Curtis, the owner of Smoky Mountain Taxi, was waiting for me in his van when I checked out of the hotel this morning at just before 7. It was still somewhat dark (sunrise was 7:27), partly also because of the clouds. I had heard the rain begin as forecast at around 3:30am, a depressing sound when you are about to hike. Curtis¢s wife, Heidi, was riding up front with him, which she usually does on Saturdays. Curtis has thru-hiked the AT six times and intends to do it one more time, although it¢s been over 20 years since he completed his last one; he¢s 61 years old and looks like he weighs 300 pounds and freely admits he will need to get in shape before he attempts it again. He owns a wide and bewildering array of businesses - taxis, international marketing, private planes, and a company that has nine helicopters - Curtis is a pilot and a former Marine (¢I was in the Corps¢). He¢s also a Federal magistrate, licensed to carry a gun in State parks. He headed up the Internal Affairs division of the US Supreme Court and is a five-year survivor of pancreatic cancer. He¢s a non-denominational pastor (so that he can conduct marriage ceremonies for homeless people who would otherwise, he says, be turned away by regular churches) who runs a foundation for the rehabilitation of alcoholics and drug addicts... well, you get the picture - an interesting man. The 33-mile drive up the long, winding road from Gatlinburg to Newfound Gap passed quickly. I was a bit dismayed to see drifts of snow begin to appear along the road and in the woods, and wondered how the trail would be.At Newfound Gap, I said goodbye for the moment to Curtis and Heidi, after arranging for them to return for me in four hours¢ time. I had a four-mile hike ahead of me to reach the fork in the trail for Charlie¢s Bunion. It was still dark. I was wearing two layers of long-sleeved clothing under my Arc¢teryx rain jacket. I was wearing shorts, and my current pair of Solomon Ultra-X boots (the ones my son Aidan had failed to bring with him for me when he joined me at Monson in Maine for the 100-Mile Wilderness, but I¢ve gotten over that now, and I¢m all into forgiveness and moving on, so I won¢t say any more about it). I had forgotten to bring my backpack cover with me, but at the hotel I had improvised one from the trash bin bag in my room with judicious use of the duct tape still wrapped around my poles, so I put that on my beautifully light pack, although it wasn¢t raining. It wasn¢t cold either - somewhere around 50F. I started off on the trail with determination and great big strides. Within one hundred yards I was turning around and retracing my steps, as I¢d taken a trail that led only to some restrooms. Oops. But nobody was watching.According to Guthook, Newfound Gap is mile 207.3 on the trail and is at an elevation of 4,996. There¢s a big parking lot for the tourists who flock up here to admire the views. The trail heads north from there through the forests, weaving back and forth across the Tennessee-North Carolina border, so you never know which state you are in. My start time on the actual trail was 7:27. The ground was wet and muddy. Almost immediately there was a section of log stairs. Then rocks. It felt like coming home, but more like coming back to one of those homes you ran away from, where you¢d been physically abused. Then the patches of snow and ice on each side of the trail began to get bigger and to encroach on the trail. Soon they were covering the entire trail. The ice in the center of the trail was treacherous. I had no cleats on my boots. But at least I had poles. On the edges of the trail the ice was covered by a layer of snow. There were deep boot-prints in both the ice and the snow. Those in the ice were frozen solid, sometimes filled with what looked convincingly like clear water but was still ice. The only way to travel in control was to take short steps in the snowy verges and to always have a pole planted. I began to worry that my plan of doing the eight-mile round trip in four hours was unrealistic. At times the entire trail was covered with a sloping sheet of ice where a stream had overflowed and frozen, and I would search for the barest nubbins of rocks or a sliver of tree-root protruding from the ice on which to plant a boot. In such circumstances, planting a pole was impossible, sometimes even dangerous, as to get it to bite meant jabbing down with force, which would often lead to the pole¢s tip skidding away across the ice, causing me to wobble a bit myself. I was not happy. But generally there was that snowy margin, so I made progress.At the first waypoint, where a side trail branched off (Sweat Heifer Creek Trail - where did that name come from?), I did a quick check - 1.7 miles in 57 minutes. Not good, but I had climbed nearly 1,000 feet. I took off my rain jacket and one layer, as I was sweating profusely. Here¢s where that 210 pounds hurts. To think that by June last year the trail had stripped me down to a gaunt 160... I soldiered on. In an unguarded moment, I slid on some ice and fell, landing on my left side. Well, it wouldn¢t be me on the AT without falling, now would it? I had hurt nothing and just muddied up my knee.The rest of the way to the summit was surprisingly a lot less hazardous and I made good time. Because of the fog that had started swirling about, there was no view, so the crest at 6,100 feet just under a mile further on was unremarkable. Shortly after that came the junction for Boulevard Trail. 2.7 miles done. The rain had begun to fall and I put my rain jacket back on. At mile 210.4 on the trail I reached the turn-off for Icewater Shelter. As the shelter was visible only fifty yards from the trail, I took the time to visit it. The smell of burnt wood was strong in the vicinity. A tent was set up in front of the shelter but there was no sign of life. (Curtis told me later that it was probably a volunteer ridge runner who loves that section of the trail and holes up there a lot in the winter.) I had thought of signing the register but the shelter was tarped up and in the interests of time I left quietly and kept going.And so it was, about 0.9 miles later, at 9:25 in the morning, that I saw the sign for Charlie¢s Bunion. I stayed on the AT and began counting my steps. One, two, three... The trail led downwards. At step 173, and at 9:27 am, I reached the northern turn-off for Charlie¢s Bunion. My 2017 AT thru-hike was complete. I gave a solitary whoop to signal the momentous event, but unlike at Katahdin there were no spectators to clap and cheer and tell me how amazing I was.  Oh well.Now all I had to do was get back to Newfound Gap in one piece, and in two hours. I decided not to return via the side trail to Charlie¢s Bunion, as that would be the very worst place to twist an ankle or break a leg. All went well on the return until I once again had to deal with the long icy section that led down from the summit to the Gap. The rain by this time had washed off a lot of the snow layer covering the ice at the edges of the trail, depriving me of a relatively safe source of traction and forcing me to rely on those tiny outcroppings of rock or roots even more. I was more tired than on the ascent, and slipped and fell for the second time, but again without doing damage. However, at the start of one ice sheet, as I was simply standing there, wondering how I could navigate through it, I started to slide on both feet and accelerated right off the edge of the trail into the trees. I landed heavily on my left side. Straight away I noticed a pain in my ribs on that side that made breathing a little painful. I hauled myself up the steep slope back onto the trail below the ice sheet. Fortunately, this was to be my last fall. I had two or three incidents of finding my feet starting to slide which made me jerk my body in different directions to compensate - always successfully - and those antics caused me to gasp in pain from my ribs. But I was still able to use my poles without causing myself any pain, although I noticed that the straps were already beginning to produce those old familiar blisters on my hands that had plagued me in Georgia last year.In the middle of the descent I met a young couple with large backpacks coming towards me who were sensibly equipped with cleats. They told me they were thru-hiking. I was thrilled to meet them, as I¢d bought several Snickers bars to pass out if I happened to meet any thru-hikers. I gave them two each, and then enquired when they¢d started from Springer. They looked confused, and I established that they were, in fact, merely day-hikers. I asked for the Snickers bars back.Despite the awful descent over the ice, I had still made good time overall on the return leg. I was so happy to leave the snow and ice behind in the last few hundred yards and only have to deal with rocks, water and mud. I had told Curtis to come back for me at 11:30, and I emerged from the woods into the car park at Newfound Gap at...11:30 precisely. In the warmth of the van, my thighs began to warm up and itch like crazy. I changed into a dry sweatshirt and began to relax. A few hours later, I was checking into the La Quinta at Knoxville airport, and running a big hot bath for myself. I¢m a happy camper.*Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Tipperary