Date: 2010-05-01
From: Gatlinburg, TN

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 108.1
Weather: overcast clouds

The day before I left for the Trail my friend Dave told me this joke:A day-hiker, section-hiker and thru-hiker walk in to a bar. The day-hiker orders a beer. When the beer comes he notices a fly, freaks out, swats the fly away and pours out the beer the fly touched. The section-hiker also ordered a beer. His beer came with a fly too. He looked at the fly and said, "what the hell, bottoms up." The thru-hiker orders a beer. When her beer comes there is a fly in it too. She looks at the fly, picks it up and says to the fly "spit it out!" That is how tough a thru-hiker is supposed to be.When I heard the joke, I chuckled and didn't really think about what it meant. I've gotten 2 nosebleeds, over-extended my left knee, swallowed countless bugs and turned my ankles more times than I can count, but none of that made me feel tough. After the Smokies, I now know why the thru-hiker is so tough. In my last entry, I was in Fontana Dam trying to figure out if I should wait for a severe storm to pass or get up and go. I heeded the advice of my friend Bonnie and went back to the trail with City Squirl and Paul Bunyan, fellow former Brooklynites. We had decided to wake up at 4:30am and head up to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park before the storm hit at 1:00pm. I was thrilled to be in the Smokies because it is the place where Dolly Parton grew up. I had her songs playing in my head as we headed out. The first hour we were guided by our headlamps and I missed a photo op with the sign but it was nice to do a significant amount of climbing in the darkness. Sometimes it just helps to not be able to see how high up you are going. Once the dawn broke we had beautiful views all the way up to our caged shelter at Russell Field. Not two minutes after we arrived the sky opened up and the rains came. Serious rains. And wind. And thunder. And lightning. I was delighted that I had made a good decision and avoided the rain. Next day was gorgeous and windy. I had beautiful views all day, met an ambiguously gendered ridgerunner that became the talk of all the hikers and once again made it to the shelter before the rains. The third day I was not as lucky. Rain had come in over night and there was a drizzle all morning. I threw on my rain pants and jacket and headed out to Clingman's Dome, the highest mountain on the AT and the 2nd highest mountain in Tennessee. I was walking through a cloud all day. Sometimes it drizzled, sometimes it rained and sometimes it hailed. When we arrived at Clingman's the visibility was maybe 4 feet. Paul Bunyan said he'd seen better views from steamy shower. Even though I did not get the amazing views it was an incredible feeling to have reached the highest point of the AT. We plowed through the rain and hail and got to the shelter just as the fire was about to go out. Test Run, a gentleman from Houston who was testing out camping for the first time, ran around the area scavenging for wood. He was not prepared for the rain or the cold and I fear that he will never go camping again. He was successful at keeping the fire going. We piled in 11 people into the shelter and most of us were able to sleep warmly.The next morning it was not raining but the cold had come. I laid in my sleeping bag trying to motivate myself to put on frigid, wet clothes. Powder and Dennis from Lancaster, PA were chatting as the rain started. In all their brilliance they decided it would be better if it dropped a few degrees and snowed because you could brush it off. Powder also said it would be great if it froze over so he could play ice hockey. I blame them for the events that followed.Paul Bunyan and Avatar decided to do 20 to get to lower elevation and hopefully warmer weather. City Squirl and I determined we couldn't make it that far since the only gloves we had were soaked and we had heard the next day would be sunny. I wanted another chance to see a bear and sun in the Smokies. We began the day in rain. Then the hail came. Then the temperature dropped a few degrees. Then the snow came. I was wearing a windbreaker and rain pants. I also had a hat but no gloves. I had made the decision to walk without my trekking poles so I could keep my hands warm. This worked until I had to stop for a snack break in the freezing cold underneath some fir trees. My hands were white. I was shivering with cold and all I could think about was why would a bear choose to live in the Smokies.We arrived at the shelter around 1pm and it looked like a scene out of Alive. People were everywhere trying to get warm. I immediately stripped down got into my sleeping bag and tried to warm up. Foolishly I put my pack at the end of my bag and got the bottom of my down bag all wet. For those of you that don't know, down loses all of it's insulating properties when wet. It took a while for me to realize that was why my feet couldn't get warm. Thankfully there was a Boy Scout leader from Twinsburg, OH that successfully made a fire and I dried out my bag. By 5 pm the shelter was full of 27 people. Two people hung their hammocks from the rafters, 5 people pitched tents and 20 people cuddled up together in a space that should only sleep 12. It was insane. I went to bed at 6:30 so I wouldn't have to think about what it would be like in the morning. After a cold night and a symphony of snores like I have never heard before, we awoke to sunshine! City Squirl and I left early in our frozen boots and blazed the trail through the snow to get out of the Smokies. It was beautiful to see the trees covered in white and have the path sparkle. The Smokies are what I imagined the trail would look like. Once we got to lower elevation you could see that there was only snow in the place we hiked yesterday. The Smokies are a funny mountain range and I now know why everyone tells you to be prepared for anything in the Smokies. It was a great feeling to know that I could be thrown such a curveball and stay positive. Hopefully this is one of the many things that will make me a tough thru-hiker.