I was not excited about heading into Great Smoky (why not Smokey?) Mountains National Park. Because it is a national park, there are some restrictions that generally aren't condusive to the flexible and carefree nature of thru-hiking, or at least my style of it. Hikers are required to stay at shelters, and if a shelter is full, AT thru-hikers must give up their shelter spots to section hikers who make reservations in advance. For some reason, most shelters do not have privys, and the only access point to civilization within the park is Gatlinburg, TN, known for being the greatest tourist trap the Southeast has ever known, along with its neighbor, Pigeon "Dollywood" Forge. Needless to say, my plan was to get in and get out of the Smokies as fast as I possibly could.
I left Fontana Dam, NC (the southern access point to the park) on Saturday with a large group of people, and we had all been warned that we would probably encounter some snow on Sunday and Monday, which I was actually expecting, because the Smokies are known for their quickly-changing weather (mostly due to their high elevations). So Saturday, I spent the night at a fairly full shelter with people that I had met at previous places along the trail, and Sunday morning we all set out on our ways with a few snow flurries to greet us. The same crowd ended up together at the next shelter later that day, and as the evening progressed, the snow continued to a light powdering. After a chilly sleep, we woke the next morning to find the snow we were warned of had started through the night. I hate being cold, so I packed up and got moving early, eager to get back into my sleeping bag as soon as possible. The snow continued and actually made a pretty winter scene in the middle of April. I was strolling along, stopping to snap pictures, when I happened to cross paths with an ATC ridgerunner coming in the opposite direction.
"Are you thru-hiking?" he asked, which I confirmed, along with those arriving behind me. "Well the forecast is calling for temperatures tonight in the teens, and 4-5" of snow throughout the night, so you might want to make it to one of the next shelters and get out your warm gear."
"Would you recommend getting off the mountain and into town?" I inquired. He suggested that any lower elevation would be ideal, but since we were still several miles from the closest parking lot at the top of Clingmans Dome, the road up the mountain would most likely be closed by the time we reached it. At the next shelter, we waited for those behind us to arrive and weigh our two options - hunker down in the shelter or trek through the snow to a road, where the possibility of getting a shuttle to town was unknown. And not just a "town', but Gatlinburg, the exact place each one of us had hoped to avoid completely. (Truth be told, I actually wanted to visit Gatlinburg...someday. Just not in the middle of a long-distance backcountry hiking trip.) Finally, when all the pros and cons had been debated, 11 people made the consensus to save ourselves a miserable (but survivable) night and slog it out to the road, with our fate unknown. And did I mention that the next 4+ miles of trail ahead of us included our first 6000 ft. mountains, including the highest point on the entire trail?
The saga continues in Part 2...
No comments:
Post a Comment