Day 31 - no posts from Judd ....

...and my phone can't locate his phone maybe because his isn't turned on, maybe because his battery's dead.  I know I told him I wouldn't call the rangers if I heard from him every 5 days, but day 4.5 gets a little tense (and of course, now there ARE no rangers in National Parks.)  And if one more person I tell that my husband is hiking the AT, alone, asks me if I ever heard what happened to Inchworm (the AT hiker lost-and-never-found in Maine last summer), I really will do something loud.

......but, he phoned this morning. He was holed up in some low budget hotel, sounding horrible, saying he had two consecutive "zero days" because he felt like he had the flu (respiratory symptoms, fatigue.) He had diligently received his flu shot before he left but there are SO MANY ways to be miserable from regular ol' rhinoviruses.

At least my cell phone knows enough to bling me when he DOES turn on his phone.

Also from Oct 4, 2013?

I seem to be at the north end of the smokies! And the camera function of this AP is onthe fritz
72° Sunny
2393–2499 TN-32, Cosby, TN, United States

Sent from my iPhone

from Oct 3, 2013

Trying to dry out after my 17.6 mile romp today. Unapologetically it is the conditions do the trail that determined how far you can go on any particular day. Because I got to this shelter I'll have left white crane back a half day he'll be spending the night at standing bear hostel. I was sorely tempted to stay there too. It would be a very co place to come back to. It's on a road but I don't have a clue which one but it's about 200 yards off the aT. So there's the white farmhouse sitting in the middle of the woods on a creek. Surrounded by about a dozen smaller buildings made out of home sawn lumber or maybe recycled lumber. The first thing you come to when you turn in the driveway is the bearded shirtless dude holing a bud light who wants to show you around. He's living in one of the little cabins over the creek, the other building over there is the privey. Right hare is the. Bunkhouse. There's bunks for maybe 16 people and right in the middle is barrel stove ready. To provide heat. There's a porch on either end. On one end there's a derelict old corn busker a few other rusty farm implements and a garden of impatiens all planted in hiking shoes slowly turning to dirt or at least moss. On the other end there's some home made sitting benches and a respectable collection of contemporary and not so contemporary books and magazines . There's a couple cabins scattered about for any hardy couples that may find their way here. The one I saw from the road on the way in looked like a comfy tree house with a sitting area below. The building behind the bunk house was the fully furnished kitchen dining room . Again more books and magazines, photo, and sombreros nailed to the ceiling. Oh and there seemed to be a few guitars lying about I guess just to play if the mood strikes you. Attached to this is the laundry and where you can find clean towels for the showers which are in the next building over. Back here all laundry is done by hand- your hand But there is an electric cloths dryer. Things are hard to dry otherwise. There was an Australian fellow loitering about the kitchen and just about to sit down and eat his lunch, everyone cooks their own food. Of open faced tomato and mushroom sandwich. Oh, and the last building on the tour, if you don't count the front porch of the farmhouse where everyone was sitting was the " store" it had just about anything you might want from earplugs to frozen pizza ( that you could cook back at the kitchen) popsicles to spam. I had both. I also picked up a package of ramen and took it over to the kitchen to cook for lunch. I had a soda a banana and packed up enought supplies to get me to hot springs. This would be a fun place to come back to. I think the sign said there was live music one night.
I keep meeting SOBO's they are an interesting crowd. Usually traveling by themselves or in pairs. One fellow I talked to today said the two big challenges left for him were hiking out of the Fontana dam and hiking out of the NOC. Heck I have done those! And one of them in rain! Everyone is concerned about what the shutdown smokies means for them- I suspect very little. What's reall interesting is they all seem to know who is one or two days ahead of them on the trail and who is one or two days behind them on the trail, even to the approximate hour!
To the person thrash seem encouraged to meet someone who started at springer mtn
-83.2884°, 35.6749°

Sent from my iPhone

from Oct 2, 2013

So now I have twice erased today's entry so let's back up and start gain. Woke up at the Grand Prix hotel in a shared suite with Wesley he's sort of a youngish tennesssean who usually works in a gas station he has a knife you could chop firewood with and a folding camp chair with a hole cut I the canvas for those emergent times when he couldn't make the privey. We got a ride up to newfound gap from the housekeeper her mother and three kids. Oh, but before the ride I went for breakfast at old dads. The Americans in this country store type place well as country store as you can get in gatlinburge apologies tables to make sure I didn't have to sit with any of them. So over walks this fellow and says bon appetito. His name was Gunter and he was German. He wondered how he was going to get on AT. He had a car but he wasn't sure he wanted to drive up to the north boundary of the smokies ( it being closed and all) We decided that I would get my ride back to newfound gap. Find out if they are letting people on the trail and as soon as I know I'll call Gunters cell phone oops he doesn't have. Cell phone I'll have to call his hotel and the nice Indian lady will pass the message. Ok so now Wesley And I get a ride 15 miles up to newfound gap. Wesley's trail name is white crane, hmmmm. All the way up the three kids are all over the back seat and of course we are not sure what we are going to do if the federalis stop us. All the way up this winding road all the pull outs have. Even orange cones blocking their use until we got up high for the really spectacular views and then all the tour busses had just run over them or the driver had moved them out of the way. When we get to newfound gap sure enought there's a ranger there shooing people away from the parking lot. He says the park is closed and I ask even the AT? And he scratches his head and says I guess not so he lets Wesley and me by. I scamper into the woods before he has a chance to change his mind and call Gunter. I actually call the nice Indian lady behind the front desk of his hotel and ask her to pass the word. No parking but the AT is open. In fact I notice that two other gents are hiking too. They have no permits but are recreating a trip one of them made 50 years ago hiking up to Charlie's Bunyon so off we go. White crane loosing ground behind me but doggedly I meet up with him at the next two shelters.
We share the next shelter pecks corner shelter with two SOBO's and a little man who appears to be an expert on all long distance trails apparantly there's dozens in North America and he has hiked them all. He sort of reminded me of ratigas from The Lord of the rings. The wizard that gets pulled around by bunnies. Interesting to note that he has decided he needn't carry a stove so for all the meals I saw him eat he would rifle around in a big garbage bag that had a bunch of other bags in it and pull out hands full of stuff , I know not what, and throw them in his mouth. He claimed to be able to put together a much more nutritious meal than any of the processed food people were carrying these days. He expressed a particular dislike for those mountain house type meals- gee, there are a couple of those that I like. The beef stew in particular and I have been meaning to try the neopolitan ice cream! In the morning he was up and out before the sun came up. It only took him a couple minutes of rummaging around in the garbage bag and he was good to go. All kidding aside if I can do my supplies from home that does sound great. How do you make do when you are resupplying at some little store?
So the SOBO's were really excited to hear that the park was closed. They were going to try to spend the night on Clingmans dome. Definitely a nono but if no one is around to throw them out they might just get to see the sunrise from the highest point on the AT. They seemed to be encouraged when they heard that I had started from springer. And actually their discussion was one of slowing down and taking their time to finish. What's one or two weeks more or less? I didn't get their names but they had been hiking together since ny. That we're having fun trying to decide of they needed to go into Gatlingburg AND get back on the trail with all the federalis prowling around. They were in agreement however that they would take a 5 (miles) day just to stay on clingman. When I left in the morning they were lolling about reading taking it slow. Wesley wasn't out of hi hammock yet. Hammocks are quite the rage. I showed white crane how to tie a bowline and make a timber hitch. Seems like there should be a system sold with a hammock for setting those babies up and stretching em tight.
I have this really nice blow up mattress. It's small but I seem to be getting the hang of going from my back to a side position and staying centered. The problem is that the pad is NOISY. It's so loud it wakes me up and the other people in the shelter, the ones without earplugs, complain bitterly on the morning. I have begun apologizing to all around bedtime. It's dark by 8 pm and everyone is in bed before 9. In general everyone is up by 0600 to 0700 and generally on the road by 0800. I'm writing this on 10/4 after a 17.6 mile day. I guess what I learned today is that ther is no wall at 3 or 4 pm and that there really is time for 5 or 6 more miles before 8 pm bedtime.
-83.3086°, 35.6512°

Sent from my iPhone

Gatlinburg, TN

Gatlinburg, TN, United States

Sent from my iPhone

Day 23 - Retro Entry from: Sep 30, 2013

A 13.5 day. Troy and I hiked into my Collins shelter which included going up and over Clingmans dome 6685 ft. The day was pretty overcast so I didn't make the side trip to go up the great concrete towers up there. I did get close enought to hear the people who drove up grouse about how loisey the view was. It was a uphill and the. A down hill day. I had thought there must be at least a soda machine up there and I had spent the last couple days psyching myself up for an orange crush. Troy said there was nothing up there. Maybe a drinking fountain in the parking lot but that makes the diversion closer to a mile. I just keep moving. I did notice on the way up and closer to the top the mountain ash and their red berries were out in force. Also I noticed for the first time the smell of spruce. Everything is dark and covered with moss. Damp. Did I say damp? On the north side of clingman I also noticed beech it's falling. I have yet to see a familiar birch. Although there are some very dark trees that have leaves and bark that might be a birch.
I have this debate going on. Especially after seeing the focus (tunnel vision?) of those first few SOBO. You have to hike your own hike. Do I focus on getting to Damascus, or 500 miles? Or do I take what I can get and enjoy? In the morning and on the flats, I'm going for 500-- around 4 pm I'm here for the trip, just the trip. And to the person, everyone I have spoken to, seems to think being able to go until your wife comes and gets you is a very cool way to go.
0°, 0°

Sent from my iPhone

Day23 Retro Entry: Sep 29, 2013

I met up with my first thru hiker today. About 1000 he was sitting down to breakfast at a shelter I was going to pass. He said his name was mercury and he believed he was second in line for the SOBO's (south bounders) these are the folks that started on Katahdin in May. Mercury told me he thought there was a fellow in front of him who was going to set some sort of "unassisted" AT SOBO traverse. He was second and there were two strong fellows coming up behind him, Rooster and Danko. Mercury had an advanced alcohol stove that had a simmer adjustment. There was a band around the vent holes of your basic cat food can stove and the threads of a Sheetrock screw would adjust how tight the band closed around the vents. Anyway he could now simmer food and not just turn the heat on or off. He told me that he had begun training for this trip a month before he started. He said he was doing 20 mile days. I am not convinced that a near weightless stove compensates for the fuel you'll have to carry and then the amount of heat you get out of it. I can heat a cup of water in no time. As I headed out for derricks knob shelter I run into Rooster (no Danko - was he off peeing?)
At Derrick knob I met Troy and mike and a bunch of other boys. Most of them are heading into a historic "cove". Sort of a old timely settlement. I wonder what they are going to do when they get there and find everything shut down. One of these homeboys came back from getting water and said there a bear in a tree down there. It's about dusk and we all grab our headlamps and traipse off to see a bear. Turns out it was a turkey up there "fixin" to go to sleep. I think that was the same fellow that really has a snoring problem, a real snoring problem. One of the other fellows was a manager at peddlers in gatlinburge and he said we could all come in for steak dinners and he would buy dessert .

Sent from my iPhone