April 10-16th

April 10th

Day 2 in the Smoky Mountains. We left Mollies Ridge and climbed Rocky Top Mountain and Thunderhead mountain. It was hot and a long 12 mile day in the blazing sun. We got to the last 4 miles and they felt like they'd never end. We had lunch at Spence Field which was cleared in the 1800s for grazing. The trees are slowly moving back in, but it's still very open and awesome. I can't imagine clearing all that land on the top of the mountain, especially without modern tools. Everyone was commenting on how tough the day was. We stayed that night at Derrick Knob shelter. It was full and very popular, tent city, so many people! 

April 11th 

We left Derrick Knob and headed for Clingman's Dome. We heard from a ridge runner (someone who works for the Smoky Mountains Natl Forest who checks permits, makes sure people are following the rules at shelters, etc.) and he said a storm was moving in around 2pm that day. We pushed to make sure we made it to Clingman's by then. He warned us of possible hail and 50-60mph winds so we definitely didn't want to get caught in that. I'd made a reservation in Gatlinburg for that night so despite my injured foot, we pushed on. The climb up to Clingmans wasn't nearly as bad as we had anticipated, especially since it's the highest point on the AT. We made it to Clingmans by 2 and got to climb to the top. We didn't have a ride down to Gatlinburg so we had to hitch hike since there wasn't a shuttle running there. It felt pretty weird and unnatural sticking out my thumb for a ride. The second car that went by picked us up. It was a nice young couple from Michigan who seemed pretty outdoorsy themselves. They were in Gatlinburg for a week, renting a cabin celebrating their 15 years together. It only took the girl about 5 minutes before she rolled down her window a little to let our stink out. They had been doing day hikes and enjoyed hearing our stories from the trail. They dropped us off at our hotel, River Terrace, and wouldn't accept any gas money. Our friend Toby Gerkin from home, Bedford, had been in touch earlier that day and had been contemplating coming down for a visit while we were in Gatlinburg. He decided to come and arrived around 1am. Cody, Gary and myself actually somehow managed to stay awake until then too! 

April 12th

Toby drove Cody to the post office and Food City to resupply. He also took me to a walk-in clinic to get my foot examined. My ankle had been rolled a few times in the first week on the trail and hasn't been the same since. I kept walking on it, hoping it would get better but it just got worse. Leaving Fontana Dam and the following day it was baaaad. I went to the doctors office and waited awhile. The nurse thought I was nuts for hiking the AT because she couldn't handle snakes or spiders and shuttered at the thought of a bear. They did X-rays and determined that it was a taliofibular sprain and possible avulsion fracture. The doctor said, "absolutely no more hiking!" I just kind of grinned and said, "ok" knowing that I wouldn't come off the trail if my foot was about to come off completely. He offered a prescription for Lortabs but hydrocodone makes me puke so he gave me 800mg ibuprofen instead. He told me to get an Ace compression sock and use heat and ice on it. So far this has helped quite a bit. Later that night we went out for karaoke and Toby got to meet some of the Warrior Hikers. Toby and the store he works for in Bedford, Good Sports, donated the shirts for the Warrior Hikers. It was a good night, we enjoyed good food and a few beers. 

April 13th

We decided to stay an extra day in Gatlinburg to rest my foot and hang out with Toby some more. Cody got his McDonalds fix since he'd been craving it for a week. We meandered around town, I rested my foot and we ate at Mellow Mushroom (pizza) for dinner and it was phenomenal. This was a very chill day so there's not too much exciting stuff to report. 

April 14th

Back on the trail! Toby dropped us off at Newfound Gap. You could tell he didn't feel like leaving and we wish he could have come with us. We climbed out of the gap and it was pretty windy. We came across Charlie's Bunion (rocky outcrop)  which was awesome!! We climbed all over it and had great views along the ridge that day. We did about 10 miles that day. It started to rain a little toward the end of the day. We stayed at Peck's Corner shelter which was .4 miles off the trail and had a really crappy camping area. 

April 15th

I definitely had a case of the Mondays today. We woke up and everything was wet from rain and I just didn't feel like getting out of my sleeping bag. We did 13 miles to Cosby Knob. We had lots of good views and gradual climbs. We hiked with Liz (trail name Flow), Steve-O (trail name Popeye) and Kevin (trail name Grape Lightning) all day. We played the Geography game for around 2 hours while hiking. It's where someone names a location and the next person names another location that begins with the last letter of the previous location. For example, Cody says "Tampa", Kevin has to say a place starting with an 'A' and says, "Amityville", now I've got 'E' and say, "Eau Claire", etc. We took a long lunch that day with our hiking crew and Jesse and his dog Cooper at Tricorner Knob. Someone had died at that shelter from hypothermia earlier this year in January or February. We got to Cosby Knob and it was packed. We finally found a semi-flat area to set up camp. We dealt with a relatively crazy old man who yelled at us for "being loud" before the sun had even set while eating dinner and speaking with normal voice and volume outside the shelter. He came out and instead of nicely asking us to be a little quieter, he yelled "SETTLE DOWN" at us after lecturing us about how he, and others, were trying to sleep. Apparently he had threatened to "beat" two other hikers with his trekking poles earlier on the trail, so he's not know for being very mentally sound. It was ridiculous but we just laughed and went on to our tents. 

April 16th 

We finished up the Smoky Mountains finally. The WarriorHikers had a dinner at a VFW in Waynesville NC that night. We went to I-40 and found trail magic from members of the VFW. We were greeted with beer and food! Bear meat salad no less! The lady who prepared it thought we'd be apprehensive about eating it so she told us that it was pot roast salad and then after everyone had eaten it said it was made with bear meat. I didn't have any, but apparently it was pretty good. They also had, "mountain spring water" aka moonshine...the real kind. I tried it and it was strooonngg. The lady warned us that it would, "put the wooly in our boogers"...whatever that means. These were interesting people to say the least. They gave us a ride into town and dropped us off at the hotel. We heard it was a long ride so we asked for sodas to take in the truck for the drive, they brought us beer. Liz asked our driver if we could open our "sodas" in the moving vehicle going down the interstate. He replied with, "more power to ya!" So there we were going down the road with 4 open containers in the truck and two people in the truck bed too. Interesting day.