Date: 2004-04-11
From: Mt. Collins Shelter

To: LeConte Lodge (off the AT)
Miles today: 7.3

What a day! The good news is I got to a shelter long before I expected. The bad news is it is on a totally different trail and I am over 5 miles off course!But at least I got lost with style. I unerringly erred to a shelter with a lodge next to it with hot food and a little store right in the middle of nowhere!My day started normally enough. I left Mount Collins at 7:30. The trail for the first hour was clogged with snow, slush, mud and water. I was getting grumpy and Gatlinburg was starting to sound better and better.Then out of nowhere I heard voices. I came upon a parking lot and a woman said "Happy Easter! Are you a thruhiker?" In less than no time Trail maintainer and Trail Angel for the day Louisiana Lou had me seated out of the rain on the tailgate of her truck with my feet happily dangling off the ground. Then I had a nice ham sandwich, cherry tomatoes, banana and can of coke while she filled me in on the weather and told trail maintaining stories. Happy and ready to face the world, I was strapping on my pack when the next hiker apeared and Lou yelled "Happy Easter! Are you a thruhiker?"After that I flew happily to Newfound Gap without a thought of Gatlinburg left on my mind. I dumped my trash and headed onward. Soon I ran into two Easter Bunnies who gave me candy. Honest! All right, it was really two women wearing pink bunny hoods. Euphoric with all the goodwill and extra calories I floated up the Trail and just before 12:30 came to a sign that said "Icewater Springs Shelter .2 Miles". Wow, there was so much of the day left I could surely make the 7.8 miles to Beck Shelter well before dark. Since Icewater Springs seemed to be on a sidetrail, I did not bother stopping in, I just headed on.I was a bit puzzled that no sign for Charlie's Bunion appeared, but otherwise things were going great. The Trail surface had turned to gun-metal grey metallic looking rocks that were well drained, even and well graded. I strode along, eager to make all the time I could while the surface was so nice. A light rain was falling but I was warm and happy in Capilene, Polartec and Goretex. The trail ran on the top of a ridge and the views were nice, of mist-shrouded hills and a hint of clearing in the distance.Then I passed a saddle and the geology changed. It was a different type of rock and not so well drained. Still the wet trail did not dampen my spirits.The the trail began to rise and started to turn ugly! It clung to a steep hillside, almost a cliff. Snowdrifts clogged the trail, making footing really bad. I was almost relieved that fog was setting in, so I could not see just how bad the drop was. At one point I saw the tip of a tall dead pine looming out of the mist a few dozen feet away below my eye level and realized there WAS a cliff right off the edge of the Trail. Feelings of acrophobia wafted gently across my consciousness and I grimly glued my eyes to the Trail. Every footstep and pole placement had to be made carefully lest I slip and get shot right off the edge over the cliff into space. Twice there was even a steel cable bolted to the rock to serve as a rude handrail. The first time it was just in a scraggly patch of broken rock devoid of vegetation like an old landslide. But the second time was in a snow-clogged section with a yawning void on the side of the Trail and I took the hint and clung like death to the cable. I could not imagine how Rocket and Bono negotiated this mess last winter pulling their things behind on a sled.Things were getting really bad and the Trail climbed ever upward into the Fog. I kept at it, knowing at some point that the Trail HAD to descend out of the snow to the shelter a few miles away at a more temperate 5,200 feet. Finally it went around a switchback. At least I now had a loop of trail between me and the cliffs! Relieved, I headed on, looking for the trail to turn downward. Then I came to a sign. "LeConte Lodge .7 Miles." I decided I'd better check where I was and pulled out my map. To my puzzlement, there was no such place on the Appalachian Trail. Along came a jogger who informed me that I was MILES from the AT. YIKES! He added that the lodge was reservations only but there was a shelter along the way.I checked the map and eventually realized what had happened. The ".2 Miles" to the last shelter had not been a sidetrail at all. I had turned off the AT and hiked happily north on the Boulevard Trail over five miles out of my way before discovering my mistake.Knowing I could not possibly get back to the Apalachian Trail before dark, I decided to camp at the shelter before hiking back in the morning. It would put me one day behind schedule and with the reserve food and all the days trail magic I should stilll just make it. I dropped my pack and went for water before setting up camp. On the way back I ran into a group of hikers who insisted I come along to the nearby lodge just in case there was room.I had stumbled right onto what has to be the best-kept secret of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. LeConte Lodge, it appears, is perched 6,593 feet up a mountain, miles from the nearest road, with guest cabins, kitchen and dining room and even a tiny little store. It is run sort of like the Huts in the White Mountains. Staples are airlifted in by helicopter and perishible food packed in by llama! The man at the desk, thrukiker White Pine, 1995, said there were no cabins free but I could stay at the shelter. He also let me call the Rangers just in case I was missed. Apparently I was not the first AT hiker to stumble in here, but he said I was the first to manage it this year. Then one of the guests introduced himself as Steve Nelson and said he'd reserved for two but came alone and would be happy to give me the empty space for dinner. Talk about Trail Magic!I set up my bed, then went back to the Lodge to sit in the nice warm reception room to catch up on my journal until suppertime. I also took the chance to buy 4 Snickers bars to stretch my food, a disposible camera to document my new adventure, and a "LeConte Lodge, I hiked it in 2004" patch to sew on my pack in memory of my experience.Over dinner I learned Steve Nelson is a familiar guest, having been here over 30 times. He is a police officer for the University of Tennessee. Several of the guests knew thruhikers and wished me well. The Lodge believes in comfort food and I had soup, roast beef, mashed potatoes, greenbeans, stewed apples, hot chocolate and two chocolate chip cookies. Still, despite eating sparingly I barely got the second cookie down. I wonder if my stomach is shrinking from the spare Trail diet? Then warm and satisfied I went off to bed after a very eventful Easter.I have a lot to be thankful for today!