It was a fantastic day – Ben’s favorite so far. We left at 8a and walked a couple of hours to Newfound Gap, the only place the AT crosses a road in the Smokies. It was a busy parking lot filled with lots of people. Happy Feet and Tequila Sunshine were already there sprawled out on the lawn waiting for friends to arrive to take them into Gatlinburg, TN. The gap actually had bathrooms, which I was glad to see. However, they didn’t have running water. They only had hand sanitizer stations. I don’t blame them. If there were sinks, I’m sure thru-hikers would use them to wash at.
We’ve heard of stealth camping, but this is the first spot we saw stealth trail magic. The park discourages trail magic apparently, so this lady and her daughter came over and had to discreetly invite us to their car where there was fruit, cookies, soda, etc., waiting for us. They drove an hour and a half that day just to hand out food to thru-hikers. I think it’s amazing.
As we left the parking lot, there was a sign saying less than 2k miles to Maine. That’s exciting!! Of course, we had to get a photo.
We stopped at a rock formation/overlook for lunch. Snow Monkey and Bullseye were there too. It was a sunny, fantastic afternoon. We didn’t stay too long because we had almost 16 miles to hike today. As we walked, I thought, “I like thru-hiking. It’s better than day hiking because you know you are walking through something. You don’t have to turn around and repeat it. It’s a good lesson for life; good or bad, just keep moving forward.”
It was a day for good views. We took our time so we could really enjoy the ridges and rock faces that looked out onto the mountains and valley. About a half of a mile from the shelter we turned the corner and saw an older woman on the side of the trail. I just saw a flash of white hair, then her red from her shirt. We were about 11 miles from the parking lot. I certainly did not expect to see her here. She was sitting on the side of the trail, exhausted. Her sister was there transferring items from one pack to the other. Their 3rd sister was coming to help carry the divided packs so the tired sister could get to the shelter. We made sure they were okay. We even offered to take their packs in addition to our own. They did not accept our help. As we moved on, the 3rd sister arrived. We talked to her a bit. She said under her breath and with great disgust, “We told her what it would be like… she just didn’t train.” I laughed and we continued on. After the shock and worry finally wore off, I could only laugh. I did not expect to see a sweet old lady out here. Especially not one all soft, who looked like she should be bringing us fresh baked cookies. Not at all. I chuckled all the way to the shelter and cheered when they came in after us.
We got into camp late, around 6 or 6:30p. We didn’t even go down to the shelter, Snow Monkey warned us that there were 2 sick people down there. Sick how, I’m not sure. It could have been a cold, norovirus, or giardia. No matter what, I want to avoid it.
We ate a sweet and sour pork dehydrated meal for dinner. The flavor was good. The texture was kind of like this: day old Chinese food, reheated in a microwave. The meat kind of had that sogginess to it. Which oddly enough, I didn’t mind. I would totally buy it again.
– ansel