Early Exit to Regroup (ECT Day 102)

• Hiked Today: 17.9 miles
  • Appalachian Trail (190.1 – 208)
• Total Hiked: 2,132.5 miles
• Total Paddled: 99.5 miles

Weather: 26 – 36°F, cloudy, bit of sun, cold, windy

Elevation: 4,685 – 6,612 feet

Derick Knob Shelter to Newfound Gap 

We made it through the night! I did not sleep well at all though. Actually, It was my worst night on the ECT so far; I just couldn’t get warm. In the tent last night, before trying to drift off, I tried rubbing my hands together to create friction heat on my feet, but they were still damp. They eventually got better, but never fully recovered overnight. Sticking them inside my beanie didn’t do the trick. Neither did switching my sleep positions up, like curling up into a ball. I don’t know what temperature it got down to exactly, but based on how I felt and after peaking out in the morning, it was clear it’d gotten well below freezing!

Rather than shout to one another, Luke and I started texting in the am to check in and make a plan. After some back and forth, we decided we’d better try and pack up and move ahead to give us some options for the day. I retrieved our food bags and was stunned by the complete frozen state of everything. It was like Mr. Freeze, the Batman villain, or Frozone, the superhero from The Incredibles movie, had blasted everything in sight! It was extremely beautiful, but also frightening at the power of nature and our powerlessness amongst it.

Packing up was brutal. Normally, I have a loose system for packing, but this was more of a free-for-all, just shoving things in. My fly and main tent body were stuck together again and had a coating of ice throughout. I shook them out some, but relented to the fact that things would be a wet mess inside the pack if/when they ever started melting. We opted to eat snacks as opposed to boiling water for oatmeal and coffee… it just seemed like the cold during the doing of the thing wouldn’t be worth the little warmth the hot food and drink might offer.

As I packed up, a woman next to me was struggling with her setup too. I offered to help and had to breathe hot air on the tent pole junctions to get them apart. Just wild! Eventually, our team got to moving! Step one of the day complete…

Even with the circumstances being as tough as they were, I couldn’t keep myself from marveling at the beauty of the completely fresh covering of ice on everything. As we set to walking, the sun peaked through and it was truly stunning. Get ready for a lot of snowy/icy photos today.

One of the most fascinating things about it was the way in which the wind impacted things. It must have been a steady directional wind to create such uniform patterned crystals…

Ok, so… sups pretty, right!? The thing is though, we were still chilled to the bone and still quite rattled from our experience last evening and overnight. Plus, all our gear including most of our clothes was to some degree or another, wet. Thus, throughout the morning, even as we were taking in this unbelievable setting, we were also contemplating our options.

During the morning pack up, we’d overhead others talking of a parking area at Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Done). That was about 10-miles ahead. The original plan we’d made was to go a few more miles after that, camp another night at the Mt. Collins Shelter, and then have an easy hike out the next morning. At this point though, we were both in agreement that heading into “town” early seemed like the smart move. With the forecast showing temperatures remaining pretty frigid, it just didn’t seem likely that we’d get the chance for a long enough dry out session. And, personally, I was mentally and motivationally drained. I needed to regroup. So, we had our eyes on that early exit spot!

As the day went on, we discovered some problems with our new strategy, mainly that the road up there had been closed by the National Park Service due to the ice. For the month of April, there is a free shuttle service and we thought that would’ve been perfect to get us back to Luke’s truck. It wasn’t meant to be though. At some point we had a discussion and decided that regardless, even if it meant we had to hike the entire distance to the highway, we were getting to “town” today. If it ended up going that way, it’d be a long tough day for us including the climb up to the high point of the entire Appalachian Trail!

We were feeling pretty good though. The hope of getting out seemed to boost our spirits and so we made a good pace forward. We opted to forgo a lunch break even and other than a few shorter breaks, we kept one foot in front of the other.

This little snake dude was hanging at one of the shelters we took a break at.

Things were even more snowy as we got higher in elevation!

A few times, things magically cleared and the sun showed its face. That’s when we got really pumped up!

Like yesterday, it seemed that when we were close to reaching a goal, time slowed or the trail extended somehow. The last bit up to Kuwohi was some rugged stuff, but we persevered and made it!

At 6,612 feet elevation, Kuwohi is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail!

We felt pretty lucky to get the view to ourselves… apparently when the road is open, this is one of the main features of the park and can be quite crowded. Not a soul but us this afternoon, although it appeared there were some hikers ahead based on the tracks in the snow. 

Kuwohi would be another turning point. Again like yesterday, we’d been grooving in the earlier parts of the day, but maybe it wore us down and the later afternoon became a slog. There also seemed to be more snow and slippery ice-covered rocks ahead despite the fact that we were generally heading down in elevation now. 

There were still 7.7 miles to hike to get to Newfound Gap. Nearing the end, we bumped into a hiker called Cool Whip. He too had been beat up by the cold and treacherous conditions last night and hoped to get into Gatlinburg. Thus, as we neared a parking area I spotted on the map (Indian Gravel Gap), we made a scheme where Luke and Cool Whip would hang there and I’d hike the last mile and a half or so to get the truck.

The ice held for most of the day, but this last stretch things finally seemed to be more on the ground than in the trees. The piles on the ground looked like they were shaved off icy wood chips or something.

It worked out nicely and after a speedy trek up and over one last climb, I arrived at Highway 441 and Newfound Gap. Quickly finding Luke’s truck in the parking circle, I hopped in and swung back to get the others. It was about 6:00 pm when the three of us were all finally warm inside the sun-baked truck interior. Glorious! 

That’s not his truck haha, I just took this photo to show the snowy tree mountainside from a different perspective.

From there, it was down the super winding road to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. For those not familiar, this is quite the touristy town, full of restaurants, shops, and all sorts of quirky things to do. Our focus for this evening was on none of that though. Instead, we got Cool Whip to a hotel and then proceeded right on through.

With the change in plans, I’d looked into hotels myself for the night, but being the weekend and last minute, they were triple the price I’d booked my room at for tomorrow night. While all this drama was going on up high in the Smokies, I’d been in contact with my cousin Karin. We had hoped to meet in Gatlinburg tomorrow, but with the change up, she kindly offered for me to stay the night with them too!

So off we went, way away from trail to the lovely lands of Knoxville. Along the way I witnessed the traffic of Pigeon Forge, got to see the “Dollywood” from afar, and we made a pit stop to absolutely feast on some Chick-fil-A! 

It was after 9:00 pm when we pulled up to Karin and her husband John’s place. She was there to greet me and welcome me in. I was so grateful. Luke continued on towards home envisioning a day off tomorrow, to kick back and rest up before getting back into teacher mode.

In an even dirtier and wetter version of my hiker trash self than normal, I felt bad for bringing all that inside, but she assured me it was no problem. After being shown my room and bed and the shower, I quickly got cleaned up. It was so revitalizing and refreshing. That night, after the kids were asleep, we got a chance to chat for a while, but soon we were all yawning. Immediately upon hitting the bed, I crashed!

Wow wow wow. The Smokies sure did smoke us 🙂 But it was a wild adventure and some lasting memories were made, no doubt. Super happy to have had my friend along through that section (I think he got the full AT experience in just a few days haha) and super happy to have found family afterwards to help recharge with.