ten thousand steps...

To cross the Smokies on the AT you need to cover 72 miles and about 18,000 feet of elevation gain. It takes most people about 7 days, according to Google (though my goal was 4.5). Within that distance – you cross exactly ONE ROAD. Google leaves out the fact that it is always either raining or getting ready to rain or having just rained…ALWAYS. My Smoky Mountain experience can be summed up in one word…fucking soaked. Ok, two words. 

I started out on day two with a 20-mile hike plan, but the terrain looked pretty challenging. Some of the most beautiful and strenuous climbs were ahead of me as I started my day. The ritual of breaking camp is one that comes together little by little as your trips progresses. The first few days are clunky. You can’t get your stuff together. You pack things up and then need them again. Stuff doesn’t sit right in your pack. It took me longer than I had hoped to pack up my things. My camp mates snoozed out in the open and I felt guilt with every noise I made. I finally packed everything up and made one cup of coffee for the trail (note an upgrade to my gear – I bought a coffee mug with a travel lid. No lie). I took off just as the sun was coming up. 

The first half of the day was beautiful. I was sore and stiff but felt good as I started the biggest climb of the day. My mood shifted as I struggled up the side of Rocky Top Mountain (5440 ft). I huffed and puffed under the weight of my 45lb pack. Every step left me gasping for air. It was literally a climb, not a hike. As I crested the summit and made my way onto the rocks for which the mountain is named, I was appalled to see a bunch of kids hanging out eating sandwiches. Kids! LITTLE KIDS! An old woman looked up at my sweaty, pathetic face and pleasantly said “beautiful spot for lunch. Join us?” 

W. T. F????? I looked at her, a stunning Native American woman who was probably at least 70 years old, and at the gaggle of kids she had with her. Their stuff was strewn across the mountaintop. They had not a single piece of hiking gear, wearing street shoes and jeans. They were carrying their things in a plastic container. I repeat, WTF?? 

I concluded there MUST be an easier way up/down on the other side and a parking lot where they had parked their car to come up for a picnic. “Would love to join you but I have to hustle,” I said. “Mind that thunder in the distance.” The grandmother looked up to the sky, “Yes, it’s getting near, isn’t it? Better hurry up, kids.” I wished them well (on their trip back down the sidewalk that must have brought them up here) and headed on down the other side. 

Pausing here to tell you something…I am going to bitch, a lot, about the Smokies. Not to give too much away, but I am going to spend my time here soaking wet and angry about it. But I don’t want to completely gloss over the fact that these mountains are truly stunning. I mean they are the kind of beauty that takes your breath away. I estimated to my friend that you spend about 10,000 steps coming up one of these mountains and another 10,000 going down…and you get a vista about every other mountain, so essentially you are taking 40,000 steps for 7 steps that show you the most glorious view you have ever seen - each view more magnificent than the last. So, I will tell you that even if you take 40,000 wet, soggy steps…those 7 steps across the top of the mountain are worth all the effort. No photo can do the view justice, maybe because earning it makes it that much better. You can lose valuable hours taking photo after photo and I am telling you right now, don’t bother. I am always disappointed in the reaction when I show people the pictures I have taken at the top of these mountains and it’s not due to a lack of interest. You simply cannot capture them – you have to breathe in the air and feel the wind and hear the sounds and look out from the top of the world and know you got your damn self up there. If you do one thing based on what you read in the blog, find someone you can tolerate no matter how badly they smell and get them to hike the Smokies with you…and maybe do it in the Fall when it rains less.

So, I was saying, I took off over the top of Rocky Top and then it’s sister, (equally well-named and even more beautiful) Thunderhead Mountain (5527 ft). The skies were darkening and the thunder was on top of me. As the trail descended, I found myself crawling down the mountain - the descent seemingly harder than the climb. I thought back to the grandmother…the kids…the plastic container, the jeans and as I continued the six miles to the shelter I was staying in, it became painfully clear that there was no parking lot, no sidewalk up the side of the mountain. That woman and those kids were on the trail. I hoped they were ok as the storm unleashed on my head. 

In the past, I had one golden rule for my hiking and it involved an obsession with keeping my feet dry and never getting a single blister. I had seen grown men brought to tears by blisters. I had seen them so bad that people hiked the trail shoeless. I am religious about my shoes and socks. I wear specific socks and change them 1-2 times a day. To date, I have never had a blister. So as the rain began, I threw on my poncho and began to have a full on panic attack trying to keep my feet dry. At first, it meant just avoiding the wettest part of the trail and keeping them under my poncho as best I could…but the rain kept coming and soon I was jumping from one side of the trail to the other, avoiding the small stream forming in the center of the trail. I was within two miles of the shelter when it just absolutely poured and the ground could hold no more. I was attempting to make my way up the side of a rocky, muddy, slick mountain and the water was just pouring down the trail. My neuroticism was pointless – at first I felt one foot getting a little wet. Ahhhh! Then the other one, just on the toes. SHOOT!!! Then, and all at once, it was as if I just jumped into a lake for a swim wearing my hiking shoes and socks. I had lost this battle and had no choice but to trudge onward through ankle high mud and water toward the shelter. The temperature had dropped into the 50s and I was soaked to the bone and freezing when I finally saw the shelter. 

I had never stayed in a shelter before. I typically make it to the shelter and then pitch my tent nearby. Shelters are three-sided structures and in the Smokies, they typically have 2 sleeping platforms, like an upper and lower bunk. 

I walked in and began stripping off my wet clothing while introducing myself to my shelter companions for the evening. There was Ayub and Patriot. Ayub was a young student from Libya hiking the trail on his summer break. Patriot was an old, retired military guy out with some friends that he had “lost somewhere” along the trail. Patriot was working hard to start a fire despite the dampness of, well, everything. I chose a spot on the top level of the shelter and rolled out my things. This was going to be a new experience for me – but it was a big shelter and with only 3 of us, we could spread out. I put my things down, changed into dry camp clothing and hung up my wet stuff. Patriot managed a small fire and for the life of me I will never know how – and we put our shoes into the stone fireplace. Patriot hung a cord across the front of the fire and we all hung our socks on the line to dry out a bit too. Another trail tip here, always have an ex-military guy around. This was not so bad!

 

Ayub, it turns out, was in the US on scholarship to Ohio State. He is one of the top 10 students in Libya. Ivy League schools in the US won’t accept students from Libya, so he studies at Ohio State. He was desperately homesick, missing his mother most – so much he could barely speak of it. 

We all ate our dinner and settled in for the night, Ayub and Patriot on the bottom level and me with the top level all to myself. It was about 9:30pm, late by hiking standards. Just as we all started to drift off to the sound of the rain on the tin roof, the shelter erupted with commotion. Three poncho-clad hikers practically ran into the shelter, flinging off their garb to reveal the children underneath…meet Bluebird, Tinkerbell and Cardinal…you guessed it – the kids I had passed eating lunch. The most notable of this crew was Bluebird (or Ayona in her real life), the 10 year old ball of energy and sass that was bitching her way through the Smokies. “Who’s dumb, dumb, dumb idea was this away?” she posed to the unknown occupants of the shelter. This was going to be interesting.