Day 23: And out of the Icepan…

March 30: It rained during the night which I hoped would get rid of much of the snow, but by morning, things looked pretty much the same except for some new icicles hanging from the shelter that weren’t there the night before. By morning, the rain had stopped, but a thick fog had rolled in giving everything a dreary appearance. On the trail, the snow and ice had turned into a watery slush that was remarkably deep in places. Not as slippery as the ice had been, but much of the trail felt like walking through puddles a few inches deep.

The icicles handing from the snow over the shelter roof were new in the morning!

My guidebook mentioned “plane wreckage” several miles further down the trail, but without any details of what plane had crashed or what sort of wreckage could be found. If the parts were small, they’d likely be covered in snow. Additionally, I didn’t remember seeing any plane wreck the last time I passed through in 2003.  I paid more attention to each side of the trail for anything out of the ordinary. I wasn’t particularly surprised when I didn’t see anything.

At the next shelter, the Cosby Knob Shelter, I stopped for a snack break where I met a ridge runner who was just about to leave. He asked to see my permit, but if I didn’t have one that was okay because he could write one out right there on the trail. That wasn’t necessary, though, since I had already paid for one and printed it, but it was buried in my pack so we chatted about this and that while I was pulling it out. He was curious about my pack, commenting that he hadn’t seen one like that before. “Yeah, you wouldn’t have. It’s a Tortuga original!” And I went on to explain all of the features I had built into it.

‘Twas a slushy, mushy trail.

Eventually I reached my permit and he checked it out, picked up a few bits of trash other hikers had left laying around and headed off to the shelter I had left earlier that morning. I finished my snacks and continued hiking northbound.

The trail started dropping fast at this point, losing several thousand feet of elevation. The snow thinned and small patches of bare ground started appearing, then larger patches which eventually turned into patches of snow on otherwise bare ground. My speed picked up as the snow disappeared.

The Davenport Gap Shelter, the last one in the Smokies, is a crummy little shelter, but I say that with a certain joy because it’s the only shelter that reminded me of the “typical Smoky shelter” from my first thru-hike, down to the chain-link fence blocking the front of it. I’d been telling other thru-hikers (and even the ridge runner!) about my surprise at how much nicer the shelters are now. The expanded front porch areas, the added skylights, the removal of the chain-link fences and the added privies. (Although, to be fair, some of the shelters still didn’t have privies and only provided shovels for people to bury their poop, but I heard that they’re in the process of adding privies to all of the shelters.) This was the kind of shelter I remembered from my first hike. Small, dark and prison-like, which gave me a strange sense of pleasure. =)

As an added perk, I actually saw my first shelter mouse scrambling along the top of the wall in the back, right corner of the shelter. Just the thing to complete the ambiance!

But I would not be sleeping here. Nope, I was still itching to get more miles under my boots. Studying my AT guide, I decided to shoot for a place with campsites near a river a short ways outside of the park. The next shelter was farther away than I wanted to go and I doubted I could make it there before dark, but the campsite between shelters looked perfect. Even better, it wasn’t supposed to rain during the night so I didn’t really care about being in a shelter. I’d just cowboy camp along the creek.

I left the Smokies at Davenport Gap, no longer constrained by the rules of the national park. Within a few minutes of leaving the park, I saw my first snake of the trail basking in the sun on the path. A pretty thing, long and green. He did not seem to be bothered by my approach which gave me plenty of time to whip out my camera and take some photos. The trees and brush along the sides of the trail were fairly thick, however, which didn’t give me an easy way to walk around the snake. So I pushed it a bit with the end of my trekking pole, hoping to encourage it to slither off the trail.

Which it did… and immediately started climbing a tree! It climbed higher and higher, moving slowly from branch to branch until it almost blended in with all of the bare branches about 10 feet in the air. I backed away from the snake. I imagined it launching an attack on me or dropping onto the heads of any hikers who dared to pass. I knew it probably wasn’t going to do that, but I was rather shocked at the snake’s ability to climb trees so deftly. Who knew what other shocks it had in store?

I took more photos as it continued climbing, and eventually it seemed to stop for the time being. I took one last photo and quickly passed by it. If I hadn’t known the snake was there already, I’d have never have seen it. How many other snakes lurked in the trees above me as I walked unwittingly under them?

The trail continued dropping in elevation until it crossed a bridge over the Pigeon River and crossed under Interstate 40. From there, the trail started climbing upwards. I only went a few more miles until I found the creek with camping nearby. No other hikers had set up camp, so it looked like I’d be camping alone tonight. Which was okay by me. The shelters had been awfully full of people. It would be nice to spend a quiet evening to myself.

After the snow left, the slushy, mushy trail turned into a muddy mess.

I still haven’t seen any bears, but apparently they are around!

Gorgeous views!

The chain-link fence on the Davenport Gap Shelter is still in place! I have “fond” memories of them from my 2003 thru-hike!

Snake on the trail!

Snake climbing a tree!

The snake started blending in with all of the other branches by the time it got this high in the tree! It’s now about 10 feet above the trail! (And more disconcerting, a few feet above my head!)

Despite all of the snow at the beginning of the day, spring is starting to bloom at the lower elevations.

View from the bridge over the Pigeon River.

The trail crosses under Interstate 40 at the bridge in the background, somewhere between Asheville and Knoxville.

Cowboy camping near a small creek.

For an update on my feet—they’re still looking good! No blisters or other problems!

Day 22: ‘Tis a Winter Wonderland!

March 29: I spent the morning packing up—again—and writing some more blog posts. At 9:00, I had arranged to be picked up by Hales Angel, a letterboxer who lived in Gatlinburg and offered to drive me back to the trail. I intended to mail my laptop ahead to myself on the trail using a flat-rate box that was in the front office of the hotel, but when I went to the front office I learned it was closed on Sundays. Doah! What kind of hotel closes its front office on Sundays?! And being Sunday, the post office itself was closed as well. So at the last minute, I asked Hales Angel to mail my laptop ahead for me.

With that last detail settled, Hales Angel and her husband arrived to pick me up and whisk me back to the trail. It was a clear but cold morning, and in the distance, I could still see white on the mountaintops outside of town. This bode well for getting plenty of photos with snow on the trail!
As we drove higher in the mountains, we saw the first sprinklings of snow and ice which grew more pronounced as we continued higher. I was pretty excited about this! I’m sure most hikers weren’t happy, but the dead-looking trees had long since bored me. Just the idea of seeing something new was exciting, even if it was white and cold. =)
At Newfound Gap, we took some photos, and then I headed back onto the trail which was now covered with snow and ice. The snow wasn’t so bad—just a few inches deep in most places, but the ice was tricky since it was slippery! I could have made good use of my microspikes early in the morning when the snow was still frozen, but I didn’t once regret having left them at home. Carrying them for a month to use them on a single morning wasn’t worth it.  But if there was one day they would have been useful, this was it.

Hales Angel drops me back at Newfound Gap—this time, there’s a lot more snow around! (It’s not on the ground in the parking lot which was cleared of it, but you can see piles of it in the background along the edge of the road.) Many thanks to the Hales for the ride back to the trail! =)

The views all day were spectacular. The skies were clear and sunny, and scenic overlooks along the trail were relatively common. It was definitely very cold—without a doubt, my coldest day on the trail so far. I didn’t wear any special clothes while I was hiking—just hiking kept me plenty warm. But at the end of the day, after hiking 15.6 miles to the Tri-Corner Knob Shelter, I definitely put on all my warm woolies for the night! Long underwear, check! Fleece jacket, check! Thick socks, check! Warm gloves, check! I was prepared for a snowstorm or two before spring and summer would  finally claw their way onto the trail.

Temperatures were expected to drop into the 20s overnight. Not as cold as the night before by all accounts, but still well below freezing! I had not planned to hit the very highest points on the Appalachian Trail just as the coldest weather to hit the trail arrived, but such is my luck! =) Between the clothes I wore and my 20-degree bag, I stayed comfortably warm without any trouble. Thinking back, I remembered a few nights I was in misery with cold during my first thru-hike and it never got this cold. Yeah, I’m definitely more prepared for cold weather now than I was back then!

See that? Katahdin, Maine—just another 1,972.0 miles away! I’m practically done with this trail already! =)

Snow! Snow! Everywhere is snow! The Appalachian Trail is still clearly marked from the many people who’ve trampled it down already.

And giant icicles! I don’t get to see icicles very often where I live, so they are always exciting when I do get to see them. =)

There were even sheets of icicles along the trail! Be careful of your step, though. It’s easy to slip on this stuff! (And I did slip many times!)

A couple of day hikers who had previously thru-hiked the AT a couple of years earlier. (In fact, that was how they originally met—during their thru-hike!)

Icicles hanging from the trees.

The Icewater Spring Shelter seemed aptly named this time when I passed by it early in the afternoon. (As an aside, this is the only shelter in the Smokies that actually looks like it had not been remodeled since my first thru-hike. But it was always larger and more fancy than the others were.)

The views were spectacular all day long, and everything in the higher elevations had that nice touch of white snow. =)

More views from Charlies Bunion.

Holy giant icicles! What amazes me most, perhaps, is knowing that these formed in just the two days I had been off the trail in Gatlinburg. Before then, there was absolutely no snow or ice anywhere to be found.

A touch of snow in the distant mountaintops.

The smoke on the horizon puzzled me. How could there be a wildfire when it’s so cold and wet out? Then I thought, controlled burn! I’d bet money that that is a controlled burn on the horizon. When is a better time to do a controlled burn but when it’s cold and it’s recently snowed/rained?!

I imagined a happy hiker wrote this message in the snow. Actually, I know it for a fact—I wrote the message! Ha! =)

Lonestar knocks lightly on some of the icicles to check how solid they are. (Yep, they’re solid!)

Late in the day, when temperatures started to warm, the snow turned kind of slushy and left slushy tracks for us to follow through the snow. At least it’s not as slippery as ice, but it was more wet!

The Tri-Corner Knob Shelter, my home for the night.

Day 18: Deeper into the Smokies

March 25: The night turned out to be extraordinarily windy, whipping the tarps across the front of the shelter into a frenzy. The tarps, I was told, were put up by ridge runners to help keep heat in the shelters and would be taken down later in the year when temperatures warmed more, but I was ready to get up and rip them off myself with all the noise they made in the wind.
By morning, the sky was clear and beautiful, but the wind was still whipping away wildly. However, hikers who checked their smartphone weather reports started reporting new weather concerns with heavy rain and thunderstorms being forecast for tomorrow, and a cold front would push through the day after that dropping temperatures into the teens and throw a dose of snow on the trail for good measure. I didn’t find the weather reports too concerning—I was prepared to handle cold and snow—as long as it wasn't more than a few inches, it should not be much of an issue. If the snow was a few feet deep, I might have trouble following the trail, but a few inches wasn’t going to be a problem.

But then, I have experience with cold temperatures and snow. Not to mention that I had planned to go into Gatlinburg to resupply the next day—I might miss the snow completely! I kind of hoped I’d see some of it just to make my photos more interesting. These dead-looking trees of the winter are becoming boring, but many of the other hikers seemed like they were in a total crisis mode trying to decide what to do about the weather.

This day’s hiking was largely uneventful, however, and I pulled off my longest day yet of 19.5 AT miles. If you include the side trails to water and shelters that I visited, I actually hiked over 20 miles. I stopped at the Double Spring Gap Shelter for the night.

Before I sign off or the day, I’d like to talk a little bit about the shelters in the Smokies. These were not the same shelters I saw 12 years ago during my first thru-hike! Last time, they all had chain-link fences across the front to keep out bears, but those were now gone. I don’t remember the shelters having a “front porch” like they do now, nor skylights in the roofs to allow light in. I remembered these shelters being dark and kind of creepy, but they’re positively beautiful things now and have obviously had a major makeover at some point in the last 12 years. I was later told that the chain link fences were removed because some morons would deliberately leave food out in front of the shelter to attract bears then lock themselves into the shelter. Now if you’re a moron, they just let the bears kill you. =) I rather like that policy, and not just because I always hated those ugly chain-link fences. They now had tarps instead of chain-link fences, which probably doesn’t deter bears very much, but the tarps—as I understand it—are just temporary until the weather warms up. Privies have also been added to many of the shelters. It used to be they all had shovels and you were expected to dig a hole to do your business. Some of the shelters still had the shovels, but I’ve been told that eventually all of the shelters will have privies.

The shelters have changed dramatically since my last thru-hike! The chain link fences are gone, replaced with temporary tarps. And I don’t remember the shelters having these covered “front porches” like they do now. You can’t see it in this photo, but there are also skylights in the roof of the shelter allowing a lot more light inside than before as well. The shelters in the Smokies are positively wonderful compared to how they were back in 2003!

The views today were awesome!

Cookie Monster (L) and Mile Marker (R) take a break on the trail.

From Silers Bald, I could pinpoint Clingmans Dome (the highest point in Tennessee and the Appalachian Trail) because of that monstrosity of an observation tower at the top.

The view from Silers Bald looking towards Clingmans Dome. (Before I zoomed into it in the previous photo.) That right hump looks higher, but that’s only because it’s closer in this photo. The highest point is actually the hump on the left.

I’m basking in the sunlight and nature! =)

Not only are there now privies at the shelters, but they’re handicap-accessible as well!

A few thru-hikers I’d be spending the night with at Double Springs Gap Shelter. From left to right, Stoat, Poppins (or HPoppins—I wasn’t clear on the distinction), Marco and… well, I’m not sure who the person in the red coat is.