Date: 2003-04-17
From: Fontana Dam

To: Mt. Collins Shelter
Miles today: 3.5
Weather: overcast clouds

Got up around 6:30 this morning. Dad called and talked to me for a few minutes. Actually, it¢s a good thing he called because my alarm didn¢t go off or if it did, I didn¢t hear it. Mr. and Mrs. Laney came by at 8:00 to pick me up. Very nice people, they remind me of my grandparents. Mrs. Laney was all worried about me heading out alone but I assured her I¢d be fine and told her I would be meeting up with my partners. It was a short day. I arrived at Mount Collins Shelter between 12:30 and 1:00. I ran into Mr. Magoo when I was walking up the side trail to get to the AT. It was a little odd because he was headed to the parking lot at Clingman¢s Dome. He said he¢d been to the Dome before so he was taking the bypass. Like I said, it was a little odd. Today was a day of strange things. After I passed Clingman¢s Dome I saw these guys carrying a wing to an airplane. What¢s this I thought? I couldn¢t help myself, so I asked. Turns out about 3 weeks ago there was a plane crash. Yesterday they took out most of the wreckage by helicopter and today they took what was left. I guess the pilot was inexperienced and had his instruments set too low, unfortunately, he didn¢t survive. Met up with Snipe (Eric) at the cut off for the shelter, so we arrived here together. He was just stopping for lunch, though. It is raining and windy! I was here for about an hour, getting cold. Ate lunch, climbed into my bag liner, and read the register. Reading the register is like reading the newspaper, you get to see what¢s going on with people on the trail. Like I said, I was here for about an hour when 2 people came in. They were weekenders named Carla and Tom. You can tell the difference between a thru-hiker and a weekender by their clothes. A weekender (at least the ones that are here) wear jeans and cotton. That¢s a big mistake out here. A little while later Molasses and Strider showed up. Then Jeremy the trail runner came in. He makes me cold just looking at him. I¢m all bundled up sitting in my sleeping bag and he¢s here in shorts. Another odd scene was when another hiker came in pushing a wheelbarrow. Yep, that¢s right, a wheelbarrow. Is this guy nuts, I thought! Apparently he¢s out for 11 days and didn¢t want to carry everything on his back. Still, a wheelbarrow, I mean, come on! I have a hard enough time getting myself up the mountain, let alone pushing a cart. I¢m freezing so I must go get warm. Oh yeah, it was 45 degrees when the Laneys dropped me off this morning and I think it¢s getting colder. After spending some time in my sleeping bag I managed to get back out and make some dinner. This was very hard because I was nice and warm in there. I had Lipton chicken noodles, a nice cup of hot raspberry tea and a Butterfinger for dessert. I¢ve hung my food bag and am already back in my nice warm bag and it¢s not even 7:30 yet. There is a little bird that keeps coming into the shelter and hopping around. The shelters in the Smokeys are a bit different than the ones we¢ve been to so far. They are 3-sided like all of the others, except that these have a chain link fence that runs across the front of them. Is this to keep the people in or the animals out? I¢ve stayed in this kind of shelter previously and thought nothing of it but after staying in the open shelters since Springer, these feel strange. Should we be in an exhibit at the zoo? I borrowed a book from Fontana Dam (they didn¢t have much to choose from) so I¢m going to try and read a bit before I go to sleep. Rain, rain, go away and bring me some sunny skies!