Date: 2013-03-18
From: Mollies Ridge Shelter

To: Derrick Knob Shelter
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: light rain

Adventure on Thunderhead Mountain.During the night the wind picked up and the tarp that was hung across the shelter in an attempt to keep the wind out noisily flapped and frayed all night, keeping everyone up for at least some time. The morning greeted us with increasingly strong winds, and we were "dryish" within the midst of the clouds as we started out. The first six miles of the day were over relatively easy terrain, and we made rapid progress. At times we descended below the cloud cover and could see the sun shining brightly in the valley, although never on us. Everything changed when we began to ascend Rocky Top Mountain. As we came out of the tree cover onto the open bald, the wind blasted us full force. It felt like if you weren't careful, you could be knocked over. We couldn't see anything but the clouds rushing past us. I was pumped. This was exciting, an adventure! I was aware that if it was colder or snowing or turned into a thunderstorm it would be dangerous, but for now it was just an exciting adventure. The limited visibility had us hiking blind and I thought we would be descending from that point on. But instead, we moved higher to another bald. Now, it was raining hard! Then a tough climb took us even higher and along an extended exposed ridge. The roar of the wind was awesome; the rain was beating on us! We saw a geological marker that said we were at 5,527 feet, the peak of Thunderhead. The suddenness of the weather change had surprised me, and I was caught with only the top portion of my rain gear on. I was quickly soaked from the waist down and so was Hoosier. The safest and sanest thing to do was to just keep moving, even as the weather kept getting worse. At times we experienced thunder and lightening and small hail. In an effort to make it to a shelter we hiked without any breaks as fast as we could over the rough terrain.When we came into the first available shelter at 4,800 feet, we were greeted by four students from Tufts University who were on the trail doing a section hike. They had gotten off the trail earlier and were warm and dry. Once in the shelter Hoosier and I were also able to to warm up, even as the weather worsened outside. The hail was making a tremendous racket as it bounced on the tin roof. It had now been either hailing or raining hard for the past four hours with no let up at all. We gave each thru-hiker that came in from the storm after us a cup of coffee as soon as they arrived. Roadrunner, who is from Germany, was particularly cold and in bad shape. He immediately just huddled in his sleeping bag. Hoosier and I were concerned as we realized that he was suffering the secondary stages of hypothermia. We made dinner and served it to him while he remained in his sleeping bag. The last hiker to come in from the storm was Grrr. He was exposed to the very worst of the storm for longer then anyone else. Hoosier and I were sitting together in the shelter when he arrived. Dripping wet he took three steps and uncharacteristically stepped right into our personal space as he stood directly in front of us and said, "What were you doing 30 minutes ago?" We looked quizzically at him and he vehemently asked again. I tentatively offered that we were worried about him and that Hoosier had prayed for him about a half an hour ago. He then directly said, "30 minutes ago my ankle was so bad that I was not sure I could go on. Then just like that all the pain was gone...completely gone." This rugged, "tough as nails" man believed something miraculous had happened. I don't want to discount the mystery of that. I will never forget seeing Grrr take off his boots and then wring his socks out. His socks were full of icy water but that did not perturb this military veteran, whose career was spent repairing power lines in Connecticut during winter storms. (POST NOTE: As I look back, Grrr was one of my favorite hikers. I did not see after this day, since when the big snow storm hit he went into Gatlinburg and along with a lot of other hikers was stranded there for 3-4 days since the road back to the trail was closed by the National Park Service. But he continued on the trail. He did not leave the trail and finish his hike until much later when his daughter needed his help at home caring for his grandson. We stay in touch and even though he recently had major knee surgery he still talks about doing future long hikes on the AT.) The Clemson students are friendly and keep posing questions to the crazy thru-hikers. They even shared some of their fancy dinner with all of us. We are all glad to have shelter from the storm. Although still somewhat chilled, I am enjoying this grand adventure.