A Walk in the Great Smoky Mountains
Having been a bit disappointed/frustrated about my inability to be able to stay overnight in the mountains of Maryland (due to lack of gear,) I went to REI just days after that trip to get properly outfitted. I’d packed and repacked everything a couple of times and thought that I had everything covered (check out my gear section.) The only major item I lacked was a tent (on order from Six Moon Designs) but I considered that as negligible.
Having finally gotten most of my gear sorted out, I decided that a proper overnight hike was in order.. a shake-down hike. Since I had an appointment in Sevierville, TN on Monday at 9am and Thanksgiving was on the Thursday before, well, there is only one logical thing to do, go out camping. Family are in Ohio, friends are in Kentucky (Somerset), so the fastest I could get there would be Saturday morning.
My desire for the trip was to be able to stage my car and walk north the whole time I was hiking, this way I didn’t have to cover trail that I had already crossed (I get bored easily) and by continuing north, there would be the possibility of running into SoBo (SouthBound) thru-hikers. I phoned up a cab company in Gatlinburg to see what it would cost to be run up the mountain at Newfound Gap. “About fifty bucks” I was told. Cab is out of the question. That price didn’t even include taking me from where I would need to be picked up from once I was completed! Looking for information about trail stuff, I ran across the Happy Hiker, an outfitters in Gatlinburg that goes to great lengths to help hikers. They turned me on to a company called, A Walk in the Woods. They are a nature hike/shuttle service ran by Eric and Vesna Plakanis. I rang up Eric and asked him for a recommended hike given the parameters that I had to work with. He is a very resourceful man, knew a lot and was glad to have spoke with him and able to garner a bit of his expertise. Unfortunately, his price was a bit higher than I expected and a bit over my budget, so unfortunately, I was not able to use his services. Plus, I figured (okay, okay, rationalized) it was a holiday weekend and he’d rather be spending it with family. I was running out of options.
I spoke with a good friend of mine that was going to be in Somerset, KY too and he had mentioned that he was probably going to leave on Saturday morning to Virginia. Long story short, he said he’d help me out and take me to Cosby and Gatlinburg.. I’m going to owe him, big time.
We left early this morning (6:15am) so that I could get started hiking at a reasonable time and Doug had to add eight hours of driving after dropping me off (it was going to be a long day for both of us.) Surprisingly, we made it to the Cosby Campground in Great Smoky National Park right at my predicted time, 9:30am. Hid everything I could in the trunk (recommended by Eric) to prevent theft and we were off to Gatlinburg.
I now have a clear understanding, a crystal clear understanding of what people (and more specifically, hikers) mean when they say Gatlinburg is a shock on the senses. Numerous online journals, books and even Bill Bryson mentioned it (actually spent a chapter on it) in his book. I felt a numbing pressure on my chest just looking around.. and I wasn’t even driving. The town was packed. Tonnes of people everywhere, in town for Christmas in Gatlinburg or something. The weather was no help either, it was gorgeous out, sunny, low to mid sixties. Perfect hiking weather. Perfect anything weather really, even if that meant eating a footlong corn dog while waiting in line for another gaudy establishment right next to Ripley’s Believe it or Not (and I don’t!).
Maps sure are deceiving. Well, they are to my currently untrained eye at least. I didn’t imagine that it was 17 miles to Newfound Gap, but there was a sign that said it was and who am I to argue that? On the way up, ever so slowly to the Gap, I was able to convince Doug that since he was already here, a stop at Clingman’s Dome is practically required. It was another 7 miles away or 30 minutes away. I am constantly astonished about the different peculiarities that humans have, especially in National Parks, they really never cease to amaze me, and the Smoky’s didn’t let me down. People were actually pulling over to be able to touch, play and take pictures with ice that was once water seeping out of rock, right there on the side of the road. There was barely room for two cars on the road, now you have drivers swerving to not hit them and crush them down the side of their cars. We even saw people having snowball fights with snow that even MacGyver wouldn’t bother trying to salvage for a sip of water. Jim’s got it right, people are strange, strange indeed.
We parked in the parking area for Clingman’s Dome and to my surprise, it was a half mile hike to the observation platform. Uphill. On paved asphalt. Sigh. What’s worse is that the day is ticking off, minute by minute and I still have a lot of hiking ahead of me, with a trail that I was told was partially covered in ice. But we were already here and it was only another 15 minute walk up (20 for Doug).
The view was spectacular. It was a brilliant day out and you could see for miles and miles around. All the time it took to drive and walk up Clingman’s really made it worth it, at least on this day. I knew that I would be able to visit this tower when I thru hike in the spring, but it was too nice of a day to pass it up and I also wanted to be able to share that experience with a friend.
After a short spell on Clingman’s we finally made it back down to Newfound Gap, said many thanks to Doug and off we both went, I for a hike in North Carolina, he a ride down the mountain in Tennessee, through Gatlinburg and even worse, Pigeon Forge to I-40/I-81 and then home. I wasn’t sure who had it worse.
My step off time was 12:57pm and I had eight miles of hiking to Peck’s Shelter. Shouldn’t be a problem. While hiking to the first shelter, Icewater Spring, I was truly amazed how many people were out hiking and enjoying the trail. I spoke to a number of people who just wanted to say they hiked some of the AT while others used the trail to gain access to one of the many other trails that run all throughout the park. Four or five groups I spoke to were on their way back from overnight hikes at either Icewater or Peck’s Shelter. They provided great trail conditions that I was really curious to know. Overall the trail was in great shape, yeah, there were a number of icy passes, but nothing to get worked up on… or in my case, worth the weight of the full-on ice crampons I was carrying in my pack. Sigh.
Made it to Icewater Spring Shelter for a quick break and boy where there a lot of people there. I grabbed some food out of my bag, grabbed my map to reassess my situation….crap. crap crap crap. My day just went from “great” to “d’oh!” For whatever reason, I had eight miles for my first day (to Peck’s Shelter) stuck in my head, when in actuality, it was 10.8 miles. Greeeattt. I had my hiker’s headlamp, but still, hiking at night wasn’t what I had in mind as I was going up the trail in the Smoky’s. Off I went from Icewater.. next stop, Charlie’s bunion. Enroute, I ran into three friends who’d just come from Peck’s.. I knew I was in trouble. They started early in the morning it was now 2:20. One in the group had tried to thru-hike once a couple of years ago and wasn’t able to make it. She thought that she might try again some other time. They also mentioned that a thru-hiker was behind them. I hoped to run into this individual. I like to be able to provide a little ‘magic’ where ever I go, so, even now in bear country I was carrying way too much chocolate. When I made it to Charlie’s bunion, I didn’t want to get off the trail for fear of missing him. Figured that if it was going to happen, I couldn’t change it if I wanted to. What a view. There was a clear view of Mount Le Conte and of Gatlinburg. Glad to have stopped in.
Not even a couple hundred yards up the trail from Charlie’s Bunion I saw two guys sitting on the ground with three or four people standing around talking. It was obvious even from afar, I’d ran into the thru-hiker. Young Gun was his name and he’d started in Maine in mid-June and was counting the days before being completely finished with the trail. He had family in the area and was able to get off for a Thanksgiving celebration. He even convinced his younger brother to come out hiking with him for the holiday weekend. Very nice young men. I usually ask seemingly silly questions but gain great advice from hikers, and Young Gun’s advice was to ditch my water filter. He said “everyone starts with them, for about the first hundred miles or so, then after that, you realize that no one is using them anymore, so you send it home.” I feel reluctant to share in that same philosophy, but when it comes to weight, less is profoundly better. Having chatted with him and the others about a wide variety of topics, time was a wastin’, I had over six miles left to hike and it was 3:30.
I tell you. I don’t like this rushing around bit, not at all. The whole purpose of this trip was to have fun, meet people and learn. Rushing off doesn’t feel like fun.
Since I’d never used my stove and pot (for cooking,) I thought that it’d be wise to cook while there was a little light left. Admittedly, I was reluctant to stop, I wanted to get to Peck’s before sundown, but knew I’d be in the same predicament either way, so I might as well eat now instead of debating it later. It took a little while to start the Varga stove, only because I didn’t bring a primer to help heat up the fuel (won’t make that same mistake). I was kinda amazed how fast it heated the water and was even more astonished how quickly the fuel burned up. If you were doing some proper cooking, you’d need more fuel.. I think I’ll be able to get by though. For dinner, I chose Mountain House Rice and Cheese. It was easy to prepare and I could hike on while it “cooked” in the bag. It doubled as a great hand warmer while hiking on to the shelter, except the few close calls on the ice where I almost dropped my dinner, which undoubtedly would have turned into a midnight snack for a hungry bear. The food was okay but it was piping warm and boosted my spirits to move on and get to Peck’s. Sometime around 6pm, it was getting to be so pitch dark in the wooded tunnels that I was forced to turn on the hiker light. I kept it on the first, or low setting so that my eyes would stay a little more acclimated to the night. Finally after about 20 minutes, the nighttime was swallowing up more and more ambient light and now I required more candlepower to be able to see where I was going. I turned it on to the second, brighter setting, or so I thought. As it turned out, I’d had it on the highest setting the whole time. It was the batteries that were going dead. Greeaatttt. I had maybe three to four feet of decent visibility and it was so dim that everything was kind of blurry, very difficult to make out defined edges. Apparently I was learning my third lesson of the day. When you check your flashlight (headlamp, whatever), do so in a darkroom or outside at night if possible. Or when in doubt, change all batteries and avoid any potential problems altogether.
Ahead I saw the outline of a wooden sign, I knew I’d made it to Peck’s. Upon further review I learned that I still had 4/10′s of a mile to go. D’oh! Sigh. Down the watery trail with a fading light I went. Earlier in the day at the backcountry permit office at Sugarlands Visitor Center, I was told that there’d be three people in the shelter tonight, I was hoping for none, or, if there were any that there would be someone with the name of Fireman, Firebug, Firewalker or anything that would mean that a welcoming fire would be enjoyed on such a lovely evening. Nope, nothing of the sorts. Instead there was one guy who was already in bed and almost asleep, it was 7:12pm. So much for the night life at Peck’s Shelter. After a quick couple pleasantries, sleeping guy zipped himself back up and went to sleep. I rolled out my mattress, hung food bag, and got ready for bed. After looking over my map to properly prepare for the next day (didn’t want to have any more surprises) and reading the shelter registry, I journaled a bit, until I was too tired and fell asleep with the Treo in my hands.
Matt
TrailJournals Link: http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=163190
