AT Adventures: December 2007

Caleb and I awoke and attacked Clingman's Dome, the highest point on the AT. Its in the Smokies (obviously), which surprised me. I had expected the highest point of the trail to be in the Whites, or somewhere else in New England, not in NC. But cool! So we got up and started hiking. It was a decent climb as we trekked along, and saw more actual factual real life Christmas Trees. That was neat. We get to the top, where they've got this huge spiral structure thing standing, and we see...clouds. We were socked in on every side, with no chance of seeing much of the incredible view. At some point, I'll do the Smokies again, night hike up to Clingmans, and watch the sun rise. But on a clear day. The odd thing about this place is that there's a parking lot...maybe half a mile away. This being the highest point of the AT, it's fairly popular. So C and I emerge from the woods, hairy, smelly, and funny looking (hiker clothes don't look like regular people clothes), and find a thin but consistent stream of tourists walking up the spaceship thing. We walk up and look around, then settle in. I walk down and get my and Caleb's long sleeved shirts, because it was cold, walk back up, and watch the people for a while. They were very odd. You get used to seeing other hikers, with the hiker mindset, etc, on trail. These people were so different. They were so fast...it was weird. Everyone would walk to the top, look about for maybe five minutes, then off they went, back down to their car. We were weirded out. So-Close showed up and we spoke with her, and we all shared our disbelief over the haste of people. Then she walked down to her pack (why carry our packs up when we could leave them there at the bottom?), picked up her stove and some oatmeal, and we made oatmeal. It wasn't that far from breakfast, but whatever. You have to eat everything you can. So we did. After the oatmeal we waited a bit more, hoping the clouds would clear. They didn't, so we decided to get moving, since we had to get to the next shelter (Icewater) and had...I don't know...10 to 12 more miles to go? So we started walking again. And found that the Mountains to Sea Trail and the AT shared some Trail for a while. The M-to-S trail goes from Clingman's Dome to Jockey's ridge on the Outer Banks of NC, and that's on the list of hikes to do. Caleb and I spent a little time on it a few years earlier. It was a lovely day, and immensely enjoyable to hike. After...11 miles, because I remember telling that to a lady we met there, we got to Newfound Gap. For those who have read 'A Walk in the Woods', this is where Bryson bails. Newfound Gap has a road. This road leads to Gatlinburg, where he (and Katz, who is COMPLETELY made-up) realizes that the AT is long (really? who would have thought...) and decides to cheat. I don't like Bill Bryson very much. But we'll talk about him at a later date. Newfound Gap weirded me out. It was big! There were a lot of cars, a lot of people, and C and I got a lot of looks from those people. The Prof (I'll talk about him in depth later) and So Close later said they were besieged with questions, but since C and I were together, I think everyone was too skittish to approach two of those smelly AT hikers. We hung out a little, got water and used a civilized bathroom, and headed out again. We passed a lot of people initially, but as we got maybe a mile out from the gap itself, the crowds thinned down a whole lot. Too far to walk. Apparently. A few miles later, we reach Icewater Shelter. Two members of the RSC were there, L and T, and we spoke with them for a while. T gave us some awesome gorp, and then they both recommended that we check out this spot we had passed earlier, 'The Jump Off'. So C and I truck down to that, and it was totally worth the trip. It was this incredible spot where you could stand at the edge of a cliff that was jutting out from the wall of the mountain, and saw this incredible valley stretching out away from you for ages and ages. Glorious. We marveled for a while, then decided that it was time to return (we may have been getting chilly...it gets ridiculously cold that high up (about 5000-6000 feet).
We returned to find The Professor and the other two members of the RSC, C and M. There'll have to be a long section on the RSC...it was good times. Memorable times. Anyway, we ate and then hopped into our sleeping bags...