Date: 2013-04-03
From: Double Spring Gap Shelter

To: Mount Collins Shelter
Miles today: 6.3
Weather: overcast clouds

With yet another short day planned, my Wednesday (April 3, 2013) began with an 8:45 AM departure from the Double Spring Gap Shelter. I was the last NOBO hiker to leave, but a SOBO man was having a leisurely breakfast. He warned me of icy trails and said I¢d be very glad I had Microspikes.        The battery in my new Olympus recorder failed about 9:15 AM, but there was little of note on that short morning anyway, except the icy trail and ascent toward Clingman¢s, the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. I passed Tina, who was taking a snack break, and proceeded on, delighted with the Microspikes. (Tina, unfortunately, had no such devices, and was slipping and sliding a lot.) At 10:24 I met the bypass trail to the Clingman¢s parking lot, and about 10:50 emerged onto the paved sidewalk to the tower, stopping briefly to remove the ¢spikes. At 11:00 AM, exactly my ETA, I was among many tourists and day-trippers on the observation deck of the spectacular fire tower! Tina arrived at 11:06.        The wind was stiff and cold but the view, in all directions, was spectacular. I was completely unprepared for, and surprised by, the attention paid to me as a thru-hiker. A man immediately offered to take my photo, and several others asked politely and with genuine interest about my hike. Tina and I photographed each other. The southbound view identified Cheoah Bald, on which I¢d photographed myself on a snowy morning a week or so ago, but I could not identify it. Tina and I tried my monocular ¢ she looked for the Shuckstack Fire Tower ¢ but we could not identify landmarks other than the massive Fontana Lake.        I found my wife¢s extra AAA for the Olympus and ate my lunch, departing shortly after Tina at 11:30 AM. It was only about 3 miles to the Mount Collins Shelter.        What a three miles, though! The trail was nearly solid ice, snow walked upon and packed by hikers and shaded from the sun. I soon overtook poor Tina, who was having a lot of trouble with the icy descents. Shortly before 1:00PM I met three people day-hiking toward me; the young teenaged boy had a ¢Cross Country¢ shirt that identified a county near my home town. We chatted for a moment; I told him XC was a great sport, and moved on. About 1:30 PM, as the path was ascending parallel to the Clingman¢s Dome Road, I snapped a photo of the Clingman¢s fire tower, barely visible even at 8x magnification ¢ I was there only two hours ago! (I later learned that many hikers, especially if they lacked traction devices, cut over to that road and walked down it, all the way to Newfound Gap.)        I finally thought to snap a photo of that icy trail, by this time fairly level but still thick uneven ice, simply to give an idea of what we had to cope with. The 12-mile trail to Mount Collins Shelter came along at 2:11, and the shelter itself at 2:25 PM. It was empty, but Two Sticks (Herb) had left a note expressing hope that ¢DB, Two Socks, Where to Go, and Pop-pop¢ made it over that icy mountain! I was amazed that he and Backtrack had made it yesterday! By 5:00 PM the shelter was pretty much full, but Tina never arrived. I was concerned about her, having expected her all afternoon, but we were not hiking together and I was confident she would be all right. (I¢d last seen her sitting at trailside, on one of the steeper parts of the icy descent north of Clingman¢s.) I did some planning that afternoon, figuring I could make it to the northern GSMNF border in either four or five days ¢ Icewater tomorrow, etc.        After hearing others¢ plans to catch a free 11:00 AM shuttle to Gatlinburg, however, I considered my knee and the 70 miles or so to Hot Springs ¢ and I wasn¢t even sure of medical facilities there ¢ and decided to catch that shuttle too. A late-arriving couple wedged in beside me (I was against one wall); the man foolishly kept a zip-lock bag of trail mix at his head, and a mouse worked on it for much of the night. I thought seriously about using my tarp more often to avoid the shelter crowds.