Date: 2015-04-10
From: Russell Field Shelter

To: Derrick Knob Shelter
Miles today: 9.2
Weather: moderate rain

The weather forecasters were quite correct;   the spring rain fell and pounded the shelter¢s roof and the trail. On the positive side the rain fall makes the forest smell clean and fresh, although it tends to turn the trail into a very muddy proposition. And it wasn¢t particularly cool, so let¢s think about hiking.JuneBee managed to get a weak cell signal (getting any kind of signal has been a consistent problem on this west side of the park), but weak or not her husband got a message through that the rain would break after 9:00 a.m. and was expected to resume later. I left the shelter when the rain became just a drizzle and hoped to make Spence Field Shelter for a lunch break. JuneBee and Hummingbird were going to hike out on the Cades Cove Trail and head for home as Hummingbird¢s Spring Break was ending today.I made Spence Field in good order and other hikers were taking a break there, too, out of the misty, foggy day. Shrek and Gummy Bear (Texas) were here; I had not seen them since Bly Gap, NC, I believe. Even though the rain resumed, I needed to resume hiking, too. The trail led through some grassy meadows on a five hundred foot climb up to Rocky Top. With apologies to Olivia and the rest of the Vol Nation, when you are being pelted by rain, blown and buffeted about like a rag doll in the wind, and the trail is rapidly becoming a creek, you aren¢t particularly motivated to stand and stay on top of Rocky Top to sing one of Tennessee¢s state songs.   The legendary views from Rocky Top were completely obscured today, so I didn¢t particularly ¢wish that I was on ¢ol Rocky Top¢ (well, at least not for too long).On the climb over Rocky Top and then over Thunderhead Mountain, I met section hikers going southbound on the trail. Many were aiming to stop at Russell Field Shelter, and with much of the trail being a descent for them, they would probably arrive long before dark on this fairly dreary day.Just after Thunderhead I met Green Man (Texas) at a spring; like me, he was aiming to tent at Derrick Knob Shelter tonight. At the start of the descent to Starkey Gap, I met a young lady going the opposite direction who was section hiking the park as she started at Davenport Gap and I-40. If you look at a trail profile map, she had about a thirteen mile CLIMB going from north to south. I am impressed!The last mile was a climb out of Sugar Tree Gap up to Derrick Knob. During the ascent I met Robot, who is from Germany. I believe he hiked the PCT last year; he flew up the trail at a very good clip.When I arrived at Derrick Knob, the ridgerunner there, Twinkletoes (AT Thru-Hiker 2008), asked whether I wanted to stay in the shelter. As that would necessitate putting one more sardine (me) in the shelter full of sardines already, I told her I appreciated her kind offer but was fine to tent with others who were doing the same. I put up my tent and went downhill to fetch water to prepare supper (note: one of my all-time favorite storytellers, the late Kathryn Windham from Selma, Alabama, said that the evening meal is ¢supper¢ as our Lord and the disciples shared the ¢Last Supper¢;   thus, ¢supper¢ is Biblical and therefore is the correct term for the evening meal and the mid-day meal is ¢lunch¢ or ¢dinner¢). On the short climb back, I felt an annoying twinge in my left hamstring, but you deal with it and go on.One of the hikers had a backpacking guitar and was entertaining the other hikers as we cooked supper in the front part of the shelter, the designated food prep area so you aren¢t cooking in the sleeping area of the shelter as that could entice bears. After the impromptu concert was over as darkness was falling, we all strung up our bear bags of food and scented items (question: are hikers, as bad as we smell, a scented item?) so that the tree with the cables now displayed a long rainbow of bear bag colors.The rain subsided and tomorrow promises to be a sunny day as we push on up the trail to get closer to Clingman¢s Dome, the highest point on the AT from Georgia to Maine. Sweet dreams.