Date: 2013-02-01
From: Spring Mountain Shelter

To: Jerry Cabin Shelter
Miles today: 15.4
Weather: clear sky

My goodness, what a day I had yesterday. 1/31 was relatively uneventful - I hiked an easy 7.7 and set up my tent under the roof overhang of Spring Mt. Shelter (which, btw, I discovered by reading the shelter log is overrun by mice. Saw one climbing on my tent but had no gear or clothing casualties ) I woke up the following morning to a perfect introduction to February: Freezing cold and fresh snow. Beautiful, clean and extremely fluffy snow. Unfortunately, when a tent is labeled 3 season, like mine, it means DO NOT use this in below freezing temps. For two reasons: 1) the lack of air escape in case of snow, and 2) the fragility of the zippers. The first problem (which can result in carbon monoxide poisoning) can be solved by leaving your rain fly partially unzipped. The second problem however...Ultralight zippers don't like freezing temperatures, and they break. Yes, I broke the zipper on the rain fly of my brand new tent. Day ruiner. Thankfully I remembered that in my guidebook (Awol) is a list of gear manufacturers and their phone numbers, so after killing time til 10 (business hours - different time zone) I said a little prayer and called Big Agnes. After explaining my situation and the cause of the break I was gently scolded for using a UL 3 season tent in the snow. Lesson learned. BUT then the warranty rep not only decided to honor the warranty replacement but ALSO decided to send the new rain fly free of charge to the P.O. in Erwin, TN! I couldn't believe it. I'll have a new rain fly waiting on me when I get there. What an incredible blessing.So my bummer morning was fixed I didn't get hiking til 11, but I still managed 15.4 miles. I think I saw 10 feet of bare ground. Everything else was covered in about 8 inches of powder. And when I say powder, I mean it was a breeze to walk through - like walking on air. So I tromped through the 20 inch drifts until 4pm and arrived at Little Laurel Shelter, just 8.6 miles later. Not satisfied with that number, I decided to do some night hiking. 6.8 miles to Jerry Cabin Shelter = 4 hours = 8pm. I can do that. I had NO IDEA what I just signed up for.I knew by looking at my guide book that the next 1.3 miles was straight up hill, a climb of 1100 feet. It was correct! Those 1.3 miles took me an hour and offered a tremendous workout thanks to the deep snow. But I refused to quit climbing until I reached the top. Didn't even stop for water. Something about tough challenges like that is extremely exhilarating. It was like the mountain was taunting me. So I taunted back It was like a boxing match with a huge snow covered slope. And I won.Not long after that the real fun began. The sun set at the expected 6:30, leaving me to my headlamp with almost dead batteries. I had spares but wanted to completely drain the current ones first. Now my guidebook said there was a 1.5 mile section supposedly "rocky and strenuous." That I can handle. What it SHOULD have said was "Boulders and ravines with a path that continuously disappears. Don't try to navigate this at night, dummy." The next three hours tested me in every way. It was, in fact, a physically demanding hike that was extremely fun. I had to climb boulders and descend into ravines, sometimes lashing my trekking poles to my pack to free up both hands to climb. Keep in mind that everything is covered in at least 6 inches of snow, including the white blazes on the rocks. Seriously fun hiking. I walked the ridgeline for a good ways and had a great view of the lights of Greenville, TN. It was a strange yet beautiful combination of civilization and nature. Funny to think that I could see the whole city but not a single person down there had a clue I was staring down at them. The trail went on for ages. And it was near impossible to navigate some areas with the quickly fading light of my headlamp. I ended up changing the batteries with my numb hands while holding my flashlight in my mouth. A bit of an ordeal.I was mentally and spiritually challenged last night also. For about a mile my only sign of the trail were the tracks of a lone coyote. The snow was so deep in sections that even the channel of the trail was lost. I was literally just following the coyote tracks and waiting for my next white blazed tree to confirm my course. God bless that coyote Were the zipper of my rain fly not broken I would've thought it safer to just stop and tent out in the middle of the woods rather than risk getting lost. However, given my circumstance I knew I needed a shelter. It would've been a normal human reaction to freak out last night. All alone, no one knows you're there, 1 foot of snow, 15 degrees, no moon light to speak of, dying headlamp batteries, the most difficult terrain I've seen yet, white blazes covered in snow, fallen trees blocking the path and confusing your direction, broken tent....A true recipe for panic. And yet I didn't. I never even got a little nervous. I just kept talking to God and thinking about life. I knew I would get to that shelter. In fact, the less I thought about my problem the easier the solutions came. Most of last night my mind was a million miles away thinking about the deep things I like to think about. And my night just continued to unfold perfectly. Just when I thought I was lost - boom, another white blaze. And as soon as I was in the middle of that forest with no idea where the trail was, coyote tracks appeared out of nowhere and ran the whole section of the trail in that forest. And when the trail became clear again the tracks turned and disappeared into the trees. One thing was clear last night: God's got my back. Why worry? Worrying gets you nowhere. Faith gets you to the shelter Thanks for reading. Say, do you think there are coyote angels?