TRAIL DAY 31
Tue, Mar 22, 2016 I awoke early. The water in a Gatorade bottle just outside my sleeping bag had frozen. I melted it by the fire and permanently deformed the bottle sparing its orange lid. Theo and I ate breakfast and we were on our way – very glad to be the first out in the snow that beautiful morning.
I don’t remember any of the customary mythological exaggeration with accompanying nervous belly overx Clingmans Dome. For some reason, it never acquired that looming sense of the mysterious unknown. The shelter was already at 5510′ and we had only another 1134′ to reach the summit at 6644′ and what a thrilling climb it would be.
We headed out of the shelter, across the clearing and into the white winter forest of snow-laden pines, soon to be bathed in shimmering light. In the air more rare, the heart was more light, all but afloat above the dark green boughs heavy with snow. A mountain in sun, in winter, rising into a pale blue, deeply cold and heart-throbbing sky – a pure gift on an early morning!
We broke out of the forest cover onto a rise from which we could see the summit. The top of the AT was in sight.
At the peak, a dirt road wound its way to a broad spiral ramp up to a viewing tower rising above the trees and providing a 360̊ sweep of wood-greyed, snow-covered peaks. I had tied Theo at the bottom because someone told me there were rangers on top. As I climbed, they descended and after a brief time in the bitter cold, I did the same.
We descended from the dome in more deep-forest and deep snow – fresh, clear and cold in gear sufficiently warm.
I will interject here, however, that taking pictures on a bitter cold winter day was a bit of an ordeal especially in mittens. The ordeal was this: hands out of mittens; mittens under arm or better over poles stuck in snow; unzip red rain/wind-breaker jacket; unzip down jacket; unzip fleece vest; get tablet; turn on; aim; take picture and reverse the process to continue northward.
In due course I would arrive at a large stone wall up hill to my right. I had no idea what it was doing there until, proceeding onward I saw that it rounded eastward as I walked. The trail followed the wall leading soon to a grassy area next to a large parking lot where there were many cars and sight-seekers. I was at Newfound Gap, on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
It was virtually impossible to tell which state you were in from Clingmans Dome to just east of Wasp, Tennessee, a distance of about 60 miles. Along this entire stretch, the trail is right on or just one side or the other of the border.
But before I would follow this dividing line northbound, it would be time for me to take a break in Gatlinburg, Tennessee about 15 miles to the west. But how to get there?
I made my way to the Rockefeller Memorial honoring the mother of John D. Rockefeller. It was here that Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on September 2, 1940, not long before I was born.
There were other hikers at the Memorial and we got to chatting as they cozied up to Theo as hikers would do all the way to Maine. A couple of guys and a gal or two were together and had ordered a cab from town. I was welcomed to join them.
When the clean, black cab van arrived, the driver said I could ride along until she saw Theo.
“You can’t bring the dog. We don’t allow dogs in our cabs.”
“He’s a service dog.”
“That doesn’t matter. He can’t come.”
“Do you know that’s against the law?”
“He can’t come. It’s company policy.”
That was that. They left and I hung around the Memorial a little longer until some other folks approached – Theo, not me.
They’d overheard the conversation and said if I didn’t mind squeezing in the front of their truck, they’d be happy to take me into town.
“Heck, no. I don’t mind. Thank you!”
A Marine home on leave was at the wheel, a gal in the middle and Theo and I squeezed up against the passenger door, Theo on the floor under my legs, the nice girl in the middle petting him all the way to town. A guy and another gal were in the back.
Casual conversation about the trail and where everybody was from filled the time along the winding road. At some point, the driver mentioned that he had some MREs (military Meals Ready to Eat) and I was welcome to some if I wanted to try them out. I thanked him and said I’d be happy to try a couple. When we got to Motel 6 where I was staying, he got the MREs from somewhere in the back and seemed genuinely pleased to share them with me. They were a real nice group of young people who did a real nice thing for this homeless hiker and his dog. I’m sure, as with so many kind people on the trail, I will never forget them.
I went into the office at the Motel and was asked to tie Theo outside which I did. I checked in, got the key, retrieved Theo and walked outside past the long stretch of closed doors to my room. We were at the back end of the parking lot after which a trail led into the woods. A good spot for a hiker with a dog. I explored with Theo who, according to some deep primordial reflex, sniffed around for just the right spot to relieve himself. Whenever he pooped near the trail, I pick it up in a handful of leaves and heaved it far into the woods. Proper trail etiquette calls for a 6″ cathole for him, too, but I reasoned, “Hey, the bears don’t dig one!”
I settled in the room and then walked downtown to get the lay of the land. The road passed over a wide stream with a short waterfall running the full width right near the bridge. The main street ran westward from the motel.
When receiving directions in Altoona, Pennsylvania once, my wife got directions from a woman who, leaning into her car window, immediately assumed a bond of intimate friendship. The woman told her, as if in extreme confidence, to keep driving the way she was headed adding, “You’re gunna pass a lot of shit.”
And so it was in Gatlinburg. On either side of the main drag were fast food places and amusements all but overwhelming some very nice restaurants and amenities. There was a ski hill and gondola at the far end of town and, if you wanted to take a half hour drive farther west, you could visit Dollywood and Dollywood University.
Gatlinburg was a rude jolt to a hiker after 207 miles alone in the woods. I’d been to Hiker Hostel twice and experienced the commercialism of Mountain Crossings at Neel Gap. I’d hung out at Wolf Pen Gap, Helen, Georgia, Franklin, North Carolina and the NOC but these places were all hiker-minded.
Gatlinburg was a tourist haven, replete with overweight pedestrians and overweight vehicles. It wasn’t rowdy or raucous but it didn’t suit the quiet, more contemplative ways of one used to the wilderness. Other than my reaction when Theo and I were rejected out of hand at Mountain Crossings, I don’t think I’d had a single negative thought since my start. Gatlinburg changed that.
I went to dinner that first night at a fine restaurant downstream from the waterfall I mentioned. I was seated in a large room with soft lighting at a table looking out over the water. It was my first nice treat on the trail and I didn’t skimp.
“I’ll have Beefeaters on the rocks and a shrimp cocktail to start and then I’d like a medium-rare filet mignon with a glass of the house red wine.” I probably had a second Beefeaters before dinner.
As I sat at the table, feeling mellow and remembering the frame of mind I had in town, I looked out over the water past a bare sapling whose branches shown in an outdoor flood light and I felt sad. I sat quietly, thinking, feeling, searching and letting the scene outside take me away. Soon I found peace in words that gently came to mind:
There is no judgment
In the random ramifications
Of the branches of a sapling
Nor in the smooth waters of
A river turning white over rocks
I am very grateful for what the warmly lit scene outside my restaurant window gave me that night.
Day #31 Double Spring Gap Shelter > Newfound Gap 10.4 miles