AT Adventures: Day 16, 6-30

Caleb and I started off the day by climbing a mountain. Nothing new in that, because that's what we'd been doing for about two weeks now. But this mountain was Rocky Top, in the Smokies. And we emerge on the top of Rocky Top to a breathtaking vista of folded mountains and cerulean skies. We dropped our packs, looked around, and said: wow. a few times. and then we just looked. It was a moment to numb the brain with the immensity of the world. It was the first time I was able to continue taking pictures while moving a little, to get an entire 360 view of the grandness around us. It was truly gorgeous.
We kept walking. Around...lunchtime, perhaps? Afternoonish? We run into a shelter with some trail magic! There was a Backpacker's Pantry Chocolate Cheesecake freeze dried Glorious Tasty Dessert of Joy. We made it immediately. And then reveled in eating it. We lay back, on the grass, and let the sun soak into us for a while, just indolently lounging in the wonderful greatness of it all.
After a while, we had to get moving again. It was near this time that I had...well, a guy we had met earlier told us: 'watch out for the Smokies! They'll open your mind!' I hadn't thought of it much at the time, other than a very cursory 'yeah whatever', but this day sorta changed my mind completely about that. I was walking along after Caleb, and we were in the midst of these trees...short little things, I guess it was getting too high up for them to do well in that climate, so they didn't have many mid level branches, only a fluffy top and scraggly trunk, so it was very shade-and-light mottled, while we had been in shade for a while. Due to the abundance of light, there was a great abundance of grass on the ground. Not really on the trail, but thick, long, whispery grass. These little white moths kept flitting out of them when Caleb passed, and they would catch the light and shine and glimmer as they fluttered through the air. I walked and walked and looked and saw and knew that the Earth was Beautiful and Simple and Elegant. It was Beautiful in it's Simplicity, and Elegant in the Simple Beauty, and Simple in the Elegant Beauty of the World around me. I walked and I looked and I could feel the Beauty radiating from every leaf of grass, every brilliant moth, every tree and leaf. The air around me radiated Glory, and I basked in it. Reveled in it. Exalted in it.
It was in this mental state that we swung into a shelter that we were considering sleeping at, but it was full of dayhikers. Dayhikers can be awesome (great source of Trail Magic, if they know what the deal is), or they can be really annoying because they don't understand the Leave No Trace Principle and they don't really understand why we long distance hikers do what we do. So we moved on to the next shelter. At this shelter was a deer that had grown far too comfy with humans, and was munching on the tall grass around our shelter with only an occasional eye on us. So we took pictures.
Oh! We also saw some more bears today! Momma said move, and the cubs moved (to where, I don't know), but then momma snuffled again, and the poles were flying as C and I made our way past with all haste...it's something else to hear a bear snuffle at you with defensiveness. You're on even ground out there. I can't imagine what a grizzly would be like...quite...fear inspiring.

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