[at-l] Cheerio in the Smokies (long)

[ATnavi@aol.com]

This just in from Cheerio, kicking back in Hot Springs on her way to 
Katahdin...

It took forever to do the first part of the park, I think I was 5 1.2 or so 
days in that section and did the later half in 3.  First thing is the shelter 
systen started driving me crazy.  I didnt think it would, but it did.  In the 
Smokies, we are required to sleep in the shelters unless full and then we are 
allowed to tent next to them.  we cannot just find a great campsite at the 
mileage we want to walk and stop.  this makes it hard to move thru the park 
quickly cuz once you leave a shelter, you are committed to making the next 
one.  You have to be absolutely sure you can hike those miles before dark.  
So, you end up stopping early just cuz the next one is 6 more miles on and 
while you feel you could do maybe 3-4 more, you arent confident about the 6.  
Also the weather was soo terrible for most of the time that you couldnt stop 
for breaks like you normally would, it was just too wet & cold.  I dont have 
rainpants, so sitting on a wetlog produced a wet rear for the rest of the day 
& the next & so on... so you arrived @ a shelter wet, tired, cold & hungry, 
put on something dry so you wont chill, eat your food, rest, then have to 
decide to stay or put on wets again & attempt the next shelter, knowing that 
if you guessed wrong, you cant put up your tent to get out of the weather and 
have to keep walking, tired,cold & wet.  this caused many short days with 
looooong afternoons trying to constructively spend time in a small, dirty, 
cramped, mouse infested shelter with a chain link fence over the front to 
keep out bears, seemingly situated to bring in every cold chilly wind.  They 
did have fireplaces, of course, they were next to the fence & wind, rarely 
had any drawing power and with holes in thr chimney so that if you DID get a 
fire going, smoke would fill into the room.  Maybe thats why they call them 
the Smokies!  Fires were necesary cuz we were so wet. 

The first day was nice.  I started in the afternoon @ the shelter area.  
filled out my permit and walked down to cross the dam.  That was cool.  It 
took a long time to cross then walked up the small park entrance road and to 
the trail.  An old ranger was there giving out advice, weather info etc.  Up 
I headed for the first shelter, 6+ miles away.  Its all uphill.  we have to g 
from the dam level, around 1500 ft to the 4500 ft range.  luckily, they DO 
believe in switchbacks so it wasnt that bad and there were great views.  It 
got so warm I had to stop & change to shorts.  Almost 3/4 up, and there is a 
sudden gust of cold wind over a ridge and a burst of hard rain.  Frantically 
stopping to put on rain coat & pack cover.  get to the shelter to find 
something I wouldnt put my dog in... luckily, it looks kinda full ( shhh, 
pretend its full ;.)) so I put my tent up near some others, cook dinner, hang 
my food on those awesome cables they have - best part of the shelter system, 
and turn in.  Rain had stopped, but came back full force in the nite & am and 
I made a mistake I regretted the entire time in the park.  I slept in waiting 
for the weather to clear like it was supposed to.  I was thinking there were 
3 shelters in a row coming up and if I didnt make my goal of spence, i could 
stop @ any.  forgot that after that, the next set of shelters is oddly 
spaced. 

With the odd spacing, and my position in it, it was hard to make good long 
miles.  I always felt I was stopping too eary, but there wasnt enough time to 
go to the next one.  Plus, the first part of the park is REALLY hard.  it 
seems all up & down.  in muddy trenches, where you slide back a bit for every 
step forward.  its very tiring walking in slick deep mud uphill all day long 
and then to have to go down another steep muddy hill and try not to fall down 
or slide off the trail.  all we did was go up & down in the mud, with rain 
coming down, up in the clouds & fog, visability around 10-15 feet, where were 
the ridge walks? the famous views?  the flowers, the animals????  It stunk 
and was that way for 3 days when a miracle happened.  we woke up and there 
was this orange thing in the sky and the sky was blue and there was NO FOG!  
And as I started walking, I discovered, Hey!  We ARE on a ridge, and there 
are tons of little white flowers with purple centers ( carolina spring 
beauties ) mixed in with these gorgeous yellow ones ( trout lillies), I can 
look to the sides and see valleys and other mountains, ridges bluring into 
each other in apparent endless repitition, birds are singing, bees buzzing, 
squirels in trees, high meadows filled with flowers and views.  It was a 
fairyland and I was breathless.  On one of these days, I climbed Rocky Top 
and Thunderhead ( I think they are in the 6000 range) and had lunch with a 
herd of thru-hikers all enjoying the views.  we could see forever in 360 
degrees.  No human signs anywhere except for a shelter roof in the distance 
and wayyy off, Shuckstack fire tower marking our first climb in the smokies.  
We could trace our route and Mad Hatter used my compass & map to trace our 
future route.  we were in heaven.  Once I caught my breath, I kept thinking 
"It just doesnt get any better than this" (Mar - excepting Manitoullin!)

We had 2 days of this wonder.  The second day was more windy, but I love the 
wind and it was warm.  I would find myself on these narrow knife edge ridges, 
staring @ the view with my arms out wide and leaning into the wind laughing 
as I let it hold me up... it was more fun than letting it push me around with 
that huge pack sail on my back!  We got into sections so high they had 
evergreen trees like home and it smelled soo good and I loved the sound of 
the wind in the trees. 

Then the shelter spacing demons got at me again.  I ended up stopping at the 
shelter 2 miles below Clingmans Dome, the highest point on the AT.  I could 
make the dome, but the next shelter is ~4 miles away and 1/2 mile off trail.  
I thought about going to the dome and getting a ride from a tourist into 
town, but I had wanted to do the smokies in one continuous section, without a 
Gatlinburg stop, so I didnt.  I hung out with some hikers I had been with for 
the last few days and we sat in the sun and enjoyed our sunny afternoon.  

The next day our luck changed.  It started out a little cloudy and chilly, by 
the time I got up to Clingmans the bad weather was back.  We were in a cloud 
with absolutely no visability and was it ever cold.  Once you stopped 
climbing, I had to open my pack and pull out all the warm stuff I had just to 
sit and eat lunch there.  I was amazed at the number of tourists who still 
drove up there and walked the .5 upthe hill in the fog to look at fog!  I was 
even more amazed at the ones who didnt have coats on!  Uncle Walt showed up, 
he hd taken the prev day off in town and gotten a shuttle up, so we headed 
off down the trail.  I had been thinking of trying for a long day, but the 
weather got worse.

It started drizzling on the descent, then going up Love Mt, the little 
drizzle turned to sleet, the temps dropped more and I was wet & freezing cold 
by the time I got to the mt collins shelter turnoff. 

Even tho this would be a terribly short day, conditions just werent in my 
favor to continue on to Icewater springs, ~ 8 miles further.  so off I went 
down that .5 shelter trail, one I was certain I wouldnt use!

Got there and found Smasher, a woman who hikes a lot faster than I, but who 
had the same probs with shelter spacing I did, so we had been together the 
last several nites, Uncle Walt, and the MI sectin hikers from last nite.  
wonder of wonders, they had a fire going!  We stretched tarps and ponchos 
over the fence to keep in the heat, and it was a bit warmer in there.  it 
filled up quickly and there was a bit of unpleasantness when a group of 3 
thru hikers showed up late @ dusk, demanding everyone move over to give them 
room and started ordering people around, telling them to share bunk space 
with others so they could have their bunks.  sadly,they picked mostly on the 
2 couples who were section hiking and were the only ones with shelter 
reservations and who had the most right to their spaces.  ( the smokies only 
keep 3 spaces for thru-hikers, the rest are avail to normal public by 
reservation permits.  WE the thru hikers are supposed to leave & tent 
REGARDLESS of conditions when those with reservations arrive.  Plus the 
shelters here have raised wooden dividers between spaces, so when they were 
telling people to move over, they were telling those who had the sense to 
stop early when conditions were bad to sleep with a 2 inch wide divider in 
their back.)  people tried telling them to just setup on the shelter floor 
and tried to explain the dividers etc, but they just kept saying "I must 
sleep inside here or freeze to death"  kinda ignoring the fact that this IS 
only a 3 sided area MAYBE 3-5-degrees warmer than outside.  Their english 
wasnt that good, so maybe they never understood the options, but it turned 
out badly.  One couple just left.  packed up and left.  the other - who had 
been the first to arrive in the day and had built the fire, went out and 
setup their tent.  So in effect, thru hikers kicked out the reservation 
people.  I hope the park never hears about it.  The other hikers then 
proceeded to keep everyone awake by talking loudly while cooking dinner & 
eating, moving everyones gear around to put theirs where they wanted to, etc. 
 miserable evening.  silent and tense.  NO fun conversation anymore.

The next am we woke to a winter world.  It looked like January out there.  It 
had snowed and iced.  All the trees had a min of 1 inch ice on them.  We also 
discovered that in the dark another unwelcome shelter mate showed up.  I've 
been calling him "weird homeless guy".  Sometimes homeless people find the 
trail, hear about free food & stuff and start walking.  None of us had seen 
him before, but I've heard that he appeared somewhere after NOC.  He wears 
tornblue jeans, cotton shirts, tennis shoes, sleeps in a wool blanket and an 
industrial tarp all wrapped up.  He popped up from this bundle of stuff in 
the corner when I asked if anyone wanted some hot water cuz I had extra.  he 
kinda freaked us all out cuz we didnt know he was there.  We dont know how he 
has managed to survive the smokies with his gear and the bad weather.  he 
doesnt even have a stove.

I was reminded of a nursery rhyme while hiking...

When the Smokies are good, they are very very good, but when they are bad, 
they are horrid! 

Cheerio  GA-ME 2000
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