Date: 2010-03-03
To: Cold and Snow and Ice, Oh MY!
Miles today: 0.0

I¢m starting to wonder what the heck is going on with the weather this year. This cold and snow and ice thing is starting to get real old. I keep reading journal entries of people starting out from Springer Mountain, and it just isn¢t getting any better. Word today has it that the trail coming down off of Blood Mountain into Neels Gap is really kind of dangerous due to the ice. Folks that just arrived yesterday into Neels Gap are holding up there due to the storm that¢s about to blow through. Other reports on the trail north of there are no better, and by the time you reach the Smokey¢s they get a lot worse.   I talked yesterday with my good friends at the Hike Inn at Fontana Dam, and Nancy told me that snow drifts in the Smokey¢s are chest high. She also relayed some really awful experiences from some of the hikers who had tried to make it through. Fortunately, Second Stage wasn¢t one of them! She had the good sense to hold up at Fontana. I feel kinda bad for her, what with all she¢s been through over the past month. As I said in her Guest Book, I don¢t know what to call what she¢s been doing since Springer, but it I sure wouldn¢t call it hiking. Hiking is where you stand up straight, and walk sort of normal like, whistling a tune maybe, as you enjoy the sights and sounds of nature all around you. She seems to have been slipping, sliding, crawling, and climbing over and struggling around blow-downs, fighting her way through crushed rhododendron thickets, losing the trail (which for me is kinda scary, frankly) ¢ in short, everything BUT hiking. None of that would be MY idea of a good time. I could see it if you had mostly good hiking days, and a few bad weather days, but it has been horrific weather and trail conditions almost every day that she¢s been out there. Not many hikers would have been able to persevere as she has, so I really have to admire her stamina and her commitment. I just wish she were having more FUN.      I¢m supposed to start in less than two weeks, so I need for things to start warming up soon, and that doesn¢t seem to be happening.   Another of our Tenner colleagues, Wudhippy, has just made the wise decision to hold off the start of his great adventure for up to two weeks due to the weather. He was going to start this week. My thinking at the moment is that I will still head for Atlanta on the 13th, as planned, and play it by ear after that. I might end up hanging out at my son¢s place in Atlanta if the trails are still dangerous. No sense risking life and limb on an adventure that is supposed to benefit my health, right? Oh, and until this year, I don¢t recall ever hearing about ¢Yak Trax¢ on the AT, but that¢s ALL I¢m hearing about this year. In fact, as of a couple of minutes ago, I am now the proud owner of my first pair. My first TWO pair, actually, since I¢ve also been hearing about how easy it is to lose one of them and not notice. I¢ve taken note of the idea that you should attach them to your boot with a spare shoe string or some Velcro so you don¢t lose them if they come off. Still, I figured I should order two on the off chance I DO lose one. It¢s one of those ¢redundancy¢ things. I don¢t know if I¢ll start out carrying both sets, or just have a backup at home that could be Fed Ex¢d to me if I need it. That depends on how much they weigh! Maybe I won¢t need them, but I figure it¢s like the small umbrella I always carry in my brief case. I don¢t think of it as being there in case I need it so much as a kind of ¢token¢ that, as long as I have it with me, I won¢t actually need. See what I¢m sayin¢?Ten more days. Time to start the official count-down to launch!