Date: 2007-04-13
From: Collins Gap, NC

To: Icewater Spring Shelter, NC
Miles today: 8.6
Weather: broken clouds

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! Hope it's not an omen. LOLWell, Eric dropped us off at the same place we hitched out of a few days ago,and by 10:00 a.m., we were hiking. It was "supposed" to be 65 degrees today,but I doubt it was ever more than 50 degrees. Saying goodbye was really hard onPersistent. I felt badly for her. I asked her if she seriously considered juststaying in the car and going home with Eric. She smiled and said of course thethought crossed her mind, but she has never seriously thought about gettig offthe trail. I think we would definitely try to help the other person out ifthose types of thoughts ever showed up. So far we are both doig fine though.You do have the thought, "I am out here in this nasty weather, cold and wet,because.....?" I can't say I have the ability to verbalize my answer, it ismore of a feeling inside that keeps me out here. (that, and I have no clue whatI'm doing for work when I get home! LOL) I think all of those feelings arenormal, but we have both found (much like Chardonnay last year) that the weatheris the biggest factor that affects our moods. I have found I have grown a deeprespect and love for the sun. Eve if it is cold and windy, its beams makeeverything feel safer and more tolerable.I talk to the sun a lot, encouraging it to clear the sky, show up and warm meup, etc. Not sure how well it is working so far, LOLWe had a few mountain showers, short lived, but when you are expecting it to besunny and warm it makes you call the weathermen really bad names! The hike was pretty easy, but as always, coming out of town is difficult. Seemsmy knees aways hurt the day after a zero, but feel better after that. We ran into more icy, muddy, and wet trail today. I'll be honest, I am ready tobe done with this section. It is a little scary because it really is remote inthis park once you pass Newfound Gap.We stopped for lunch around 12:45 @ Indian Gap, where there is a road andparking area. Lots of day hikers and tourists out today.Everytime a car would drive by with gawking tourists, I'd wave at them. Somewaved back, some looked at me like I was a total bum. It was pretty hilarious.We started towards Newfound Gap around 1:30. We ran into 2 trail maintainersnamed Ed and Dan. They told us that within a few weeks, 6 trees had fallenacross the trail, and these are BIG trees. We passed one that the root base wasabout as big as a VW bug turned on its side. I wonder what it sounds like whenthese big trees go down. They told us they are allowed to bring a chainsaw inonly 1 month out of the year. I can't imagine hand sawing some of the enormoustrees that blow down out here. Trail mainainers are pretty special people, andwe always thank them a ton. Without them, parts of this trail would beimpassable.Just after Mt. Collins Shelter, we hit 200 miles today! Another toast was inorder, and Persistent had a Hershey Bar for the ocassion (we shared it). Herewas our toast:Here's to 200 miles, icy trails, being halfway thru the Smokys, park rangers whogive you rides, Paul's Diner, heaters in motels that you can crank up as hot asyou want, Eric's VO5 hair conditioner that he shared, the mighty pee rag still,hand warmers, hot water bags, hot showers, bikini line chaffing, wild boar,surviving our first thunderstorm, and of course, staying warm into the mid-teensin my hammock. We got to Newfound Gap and man was it packed with tourists. People startedasking us questions, and I totally don't mind answering them. It is fun to seethe looks on their faces actually when we tell them we started in Georgia amonth ago. We used the facilities there, and again, honesty here. Persistentand I seriously considered hitching into Gatlinburg, because we know the weatheris less than favorable the next few days. We just want to get out of the highelevations though, so we pushed on. Scribe and Gadget were about 15-20 min behind us. They hadn't hiked in a week,so they were really feeling the trail pain today.We passed tons of day hikers, some talked to us and some didn't. There was onebeatiful view today. There was a road in the mountainside, so it took away fromit a little, but you take what you can get out here.We got to the shelter @ 5:00 p.m. Both of us were hurting pretty badly. Wewalked down a hill a bit and found some places to set up camp.   Just as we gotour stuff unpacked, the sprinkles started again, so I threw my tarp up reallyfast and got everything under it.I am in a weird location tonite as far as the wind goes. It is blowing in asemi circle almost, so it was hard to get in a position where my tarp totallyblocked it. I've got my tarp staked to the ground again, and I hear raindropsstarting again.I am pretty chilly, and I have my hot waterbag and 2 hand warmers to use. Ineed to get zipped up. It is currently in the low 40's at 8:00 p.m., andcooling off fast. Tomorrow, we're trying for our longest day yet at 12.6 miles. The terrain isn't too bad, so we'll see how it goes. Oh, one trick I learned tonight with my gear hammock. I don't have the endconnected to the tie out string on my hammock because I don't tie it out when itis cold. This means my gear hamock is hanging from my suspension line but theother end is not attached. I connected a full water bottle to that end, and theweight was enough for me to be able to pull the gear hammock further under mytarp. Kinda cool. Another day on the trail. I hope the weather isn't as miserable as they saytomorrow. How about everyone start chanting the mantra "Jetstream move north,bring warm and dry weather" over and over again (kind of like whe everyonebrought Tinkerbell back to life in Peter Pan). It's worth a try!? LOL ~Certain