Date: 2005-04-17
From: Double Springs Shelter

To: Icewater Springs Shelter
Miles today: 13.8
Weather: broken clouds

10:30 amI'm sitting down here at the base of the tower at Clingmans Dome. It's a beautiful day. The temperature is 52 degrees. Last night it was really cold. The walk up into Clingmans Dome from Double Spings Shelter is a walk into lush pine forest, the same is true about the other side. Elevation is 6,643 feet. It's very green and the ground is covered heavily with moss. A lot of big trees down. Right about the 6,000 foot level, the Trail gets rough, there's a lot of erosion on the trail and roots sometimes stick out far, and a lot of rocks and jolts. You can see where the Trail maintenance crews put out logs to try to stop the erosion across the Trail. A lot of dead pines, I guess its because of the exposure to severe weather here. Maybe its the pollution that's killing them too. It's quite different here than any of the Trail before. When I was eating my Froot Loops this morning at 7:30 the thermometer was reading at 24.2 degrees. I'm assuming that it got below 20 last night. I stayed comfy warm. Kudos to Western Mountaineering because this 20 degree Western Mountaineering Ultra light bag is the sh*t!! The rating is true, I stayed warm enough to sleep. At one point, early in the morning, I put on my flight jacket. For the most part I was happy with it.I got up early and packed my stuff up and got moving, wearing everything I had with me, down vest, hat, pants, long johns, the works. The only other person still moving around was one guy who had to meet his brother at the parking lot. I recall this hiker once telling me that hiking the AT is only as hard as you want it to be. I thought about that as I did the 2.5 miles up here. I took almost 2 hours to do the hike up here. It was very enjoyable. It appears that I'm coming down with a sinus infection, I'll wait another day before starting the Z-Pack I have with me.I went over to the parking lot to use the bathroom there. It started out really clear, I started shedding clothes as I walked. There was still traces of snow in some places of the way up to the summit of Clingmans Dome here, I don't know if it was new or leftover from 15 days ago. I noticed that the trail was still frozen so, it could be old. I'm going to try to head off to Icewater Spring Shelter, that's another 11.5 miles or so.I just passed the Mt. Collins Shelter, where Eddie stayed last night. I'm bypassing it. It's a half mile in and a half mile out. The trail into Newfound gap is like walking into an episode of the Twilight Zone. You come out of the woods into a 4 lane road with cars and trucks running in each direction and a huge parking lot with at least 100 cars and motorcycles. Hundreds of people milling around having picnics and kids running back and forth all over the place. It's just disconcerting to walk out of the woods and see something like that. I walked out with Patch, who I met last night. We hiked into Newfound Gap together and immediately were attracted to another group of hikers on the other side of the parking lot like a magnet. It was the food. They offered us the food that was left-some chicken, baked beans and cole slaw. Patch and I ate it. I took off down to the other end of the parking lot really conflicted. I was wanting to go into Gatlinburg. I was down 2 cigars for the next 2 days. I was also thinking very hard about a cheeseburger or some fried chicken. I was about to stick my thumb out to hitch a ride when Gray Beard, the Ridge Runner showed up and I talked to him for a while. He said the shelter up the mountain was going to be full. So, I decided to go up and get a tent site before it got packed. The situation in the Smokies is ridiculous. The shelters sleep 12 people, of those, 4 bunks in the shelters are reserved for through hikers. You MUST sleep in the shelter. The only time you cannot sleep in the shelter is if it's too full then you have to tent inside the shelter. The crazy thing is that the first 4 through hikers are guaranteed beds. The rest of them can get kicked out if section hikers or day hikers show up with a reservation. This turned into a fiasco a few nights ago at Derrick Knob Shelter. I heard about it from some other hikers. Apparently, there's a new Ridge Runner, a young guy, who was training another Ridge Runner. When the through hikers went in, and started setting up tents, he made them take them down and get in the shelter.   People with reservations didn't show up until after dark and then kicked them out again and made them set up tents. At any rate, Gray Beard was here also. He told me to hang out and not set up my tent. I waited until about 7 o'clock to make sure the shelter was going to be full. I ate and filtered my water. I finally set up my tent. It was very packed, I counted 24 people. There were people in the shelter, the tents, the Ridge Runners, the Trail workers. There's a bunch of people up here because tomorrow the US Army is hellicpotering in a new privy. They have a whole crew of people up here as well to help install it.Tomorrow I'm going to try to run a 20 mile day. I'm going to be out of food the day after if I don't. I'm forced to do big miles to make sure I don't go without food. I hope to be at the shelter 11 miles from Standing Bear, because I have a mail drop there. Eddie left me a note at the register at Icewater Springs Shelter to tell me that when he woke up this morning, he left the shelter in the wrong direction for an hour and had to turn back.My 'Extra Trail-estrial' miles are at 27.3 miles, including the miles at Fontana Village and walking back and forth to the shelters and to the bathroom here. I'm only going to do 13 miles or so today. Now that Eddie is off my ass, I can walk leisurely. I have no desire to rush. I'm enjoying the walk this morning. It's a perfect day. I can't imagine being anywhere else but here.