My and Rachel’s stories from the Smokies fall along two surprisingly complementary lines.
One is that the Smokies have been hard, despite our having hiked them before. We accidentally planned three days of food for a four-day hike, forcing us to either go quickly or go hungry (we chose “quickly”). We experienced temperatures warm enough to make us wish we’d sent our winter gear home, and a night so cold we were wearing all of it and still shivering. We hiked to the highest point on the AT, and then ran down the other side of it — the north side, where the trail was iciest — in order to catch a promised ride into town.
The other is that the Smokies have been grotesquely rewarding. Because of the sixteen-degree night, we had Clingmans Dome to ourselves with seventy-mile views. In the park, we’ve seen groves of ferns and types of trees that don’t grow anywhere else on the trail. After hustling all day on the trail for the hitch, we were perhaps pitiably upgraded to a room with a fireplace and a jacuzzi. That morning, we conquered a trail that had wrecked Rachel’s ankles on a prior visit to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
We’ve worked for our wins here in the Smokies. Here’s a fuller accounting of what we’ve been up to since our last post, at Fontana Dam.
From Fontana to Gatlinburg
We entered GSMNP on a sunny afternoon, in a lightly used part of the park, just after crossing Fontana Dam. After making only six miles that day, we stayed at a buggy but beautiful campsite, where I spilled half our dinner uncomfortably close to our tent.
While cooking second dinner, we got to know Chris and Erica, a construction supervisor and a retired veteran, respectively, who’ve been on the trail since February 21. We admired their “hike your own hike” spirit and grit, and did so doubly after meeting them under a shelter in a pouring rainstorm (which we’d found before the storm; they, unfortunately, hadn’t).
The next afternoon, we met a GSMNP ridgerunner, who informed us that Boy Scouts had booked not just the shelter we’d planned to stay at, but the one after that. Per our thru-hiker GSMNP permits, which allow us to stay at any site in the park without advanced reservation, we’re required to give reserved parties first dibs on facilities.
Hungry but aware the clock was ticking, we hauled out our stove at the first site and began to boil water. Before our mashed potatoes and tuna were ready to eat, the Boy Scouts trooped in.
We made polite conversation, especially because the crew was training for Philmont, which inspired my own interest in long-distance hiking. But it was clear we needed to move on, so we put up our cooking supplies after dumping in the potato mix and ate dinner on the move.
At the next site, a 12-mile hike mostly in the rain from where we began that day, we put down our tent. We camped down the hill from the shelter, far enough to be out of earshot of the Boy Scouts. We finished the night listening to our current audiobook, Great Expectations, and the steady pitter-patter on our tent.
Through the night, the drizzle turned into a downpour. We woke up around 6 a.m., without a dry inch of skin or gear.
The other thru-hikers nearby decided to take a “zero,” on account of the rain and the below-freezing temperatures that night. We chose to press on, on account of a new, worse problem: We didn’t have enough food for our planned days out.
We walked that day through streams that were supposedly trails, and again ate dinner, a half-serving each of instant grits and tuna, before ending our hike for the day.
After that meal, around 3 p.m., we saw nobody for the remaining six miles. We did, however, finally see blue sky at golden hour.
We reached our site at dusk, when the “My location” weather said 51 Fahrenheit but the water around us had begun to freeze. We put up the tent, hid the bear cans, and went to bed.
That next morning, the temperature was not the promised 29F, but 16F. Our wet boots and socks had frozen stiff. Our rainfly was covered in ice. Worst of all, the threads on the bear cans’ lids had frozen, preventing us from eating our final pop tart and making our breakfast drink mix.
Later that day, we sumitted Clingmans Dome. Our luck turned around, seemingly just below the Dome, where we met Brad, our generous driver, and the day warmed up. After warming up in our fancy room, we ate local barbeque, gifted to us by John Rampton and Relevance, my former employer.
Two days from now, Rachel and I will head back to Newfound Gap, from where we hitched into Gatlinburg. We took not one or two, but three “zeroes,” on account of a snowstorm that closed the road to Newfound Gap and plunged temperatures on the ridge into the single digits. Our gear is rated for a minimum of 15F; any less simply isn’t safe for us to camp in.
Once we return to the trail, we’ll spend four more days in Smokies, for which we’re as excited as we are anxious. We now understand why many thru-hikers throw in the towel after the Smokies, though, to be clear, we have no intention of doing so.
In fact, we have six days of food packed, representing our longest leg without a resupply yet. When we reach our next destination, Hot Springs, North Carolina, we’ll have at least that many days’ worth of stories to unpack.
