100 Miles (almost) in the Smokies
Great Smoky Mountains Natonal Park
3-9 June 2010
| Day Three - 5 June 2010 | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
 |
I have a hard time getting the background in when I use that StickPic, but there's another little cascade behind me. And for some reason my stubble grew much slower during the first couple days of the hike than it normally does. | |||||||||||||||
 |
The trail for most of the morning followed the creeks. This is either Chasteen Creek Trail or Bradley Fork Trail...don't remember which. It was nice and open, though, and aside from watching out for horse crap it had a great trail bed. This was the easy part...but Dry Sluice Gap was coming and I knew it would be a challenge. | |||||||||||||||
 |
The trail looked almost like a Jeep trail in some places; it was so wide and straight. The creek is off to the left in this picture. | |||||||||||||||
| Since I was down in a creek valley and it was very humid, moss grew nearly everywhere. It would have made for some great pictures if I could have gotten it to focus better! It was great to look around and it smelled very fresh in this area. |
 |
|||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||
 |
It was about lunchtime when I came to the intersection of Cabin Flats and Bradley Fork Trails, and I was ready for a break. The trail went off to the right and the creek was on the left thru some trees, so I hopped down to the creek to find a good place to eat. I'm glad I did...I found a great little lunch spot so I put my pack down and relaxed for a bit. That's the Packa used as a normal pack cover over the Miniposa. |
|||||||||||||||
 Looking to the left from my lunch table... |
 ...and looking to the right. |
|||||||||||||||
 |
Here's a close-up of the little cascade that I listened to while I soaked my feet in the water and ate lunch. | |||||||||||||||
 |
One of the great things about the Gossamer Gear packs is that the pad goes into the pockets against my back, so it provides the pack's frame but it's very easy to take off for breaks without unpacking the whole pack. One of the bad things about hiking the Smokies in summer is the sweat. This picture shows what happens when you put the two together. Since the pad is against my back when I'm hiking, it starts to stink like sweat pretty quicky. And when I took it off for lunch, the bugs were immediately attracted to it. All those little black dots in this picture? Bugs. I waved them off before I sat down, but as soon as I got up they flew back down there. They were all over the pad pockets, too. Ick! (I sprayed down the pad with Lysol when I got home!) |
|||||||||||||||
 |
 In California, we saw several places where people took a lot of time to stack rocks like this. I've rarely seen it on the east coast, though. The stack in the left picture was right by the creek, and the right picture was taken looking towards the bank. It was pretty neat to stumble on this at my lunch site! |
|||||||||||||||
 |
Little cascades like this all over the place. I'm pretty bummed that this picture didn't come out better. | |||||||||||||||
 |
Dry Sluice Gap Trail parallels the stream for only a little bit before turning to climb up to the ridgeline and intersect the Appalachian Trail. It climbs from 2600' to 5300' in three miles, with parts of it pretty much straight up. It was a little more challenging that I expected but I still felt good. Maybe it was more challenging b/c I ran out of water! This trail was quite a bit more dry than the others so I didn't have so many chances to refill. It was 4.4 miles and I was probably just short of halfway when I emptied my water. Since I spent most of the trip so far down in the stream valleys, this is the first time I had a long view from a ridge. |
|||||||||||||||
| Old dead tree...looked like it need someone to take a picture of it. I tried to figure out what I'm afraid of on this part of the hike. I couldn't really think of anything. Heights, a little bit. The kids getting hurt. What else? I'm sure there's something but nothing really stuck out. Should that scare me? Does it mean I'm getting comfortable? Getting comfortable scares me... And why do I keep singing country music? I don't even like country music! |
 |
|||||||||||||||
 |
My first white blaze! Now to check out Charlie's Bunyon and continue the hike to Mt Collins Shelter... I've noticed a definite change from the big leafy deciduous vegetation in the valleys to a significant increase in evergreens along the ridgeline. The trailbed is much more rocky in this area, too, but overall it's still pretty forgiving. Gnats. Something else I've noticed as I've changed so much elevation this time is the difference in the gnats. Somewhere around 4500' there's a change...below that, the gnats swarm around me and get into my eyes and ears. I had them in every visible orifice...and the DEET stopped working on them. But they don't bite. Above ~4500' they don't swarm into every opening, but they bite. I don't know which is worse. |
|||||||||||||||
 |
Saw the Charlie's Bunyon sign just after I started hiking south. I ended up going south to the Charlie's Bunyon bypass trail, then followed it back north for a very shot bit before coming out onto the Bunyon. It was pretty beautiful, but it was rainy and VERY windy so I didn't stick around long. From the AT south of the Bunyon, I saw some hikers way out there screaming and enjoying themselves. Not sure if they're braver than me or just dumber, but they were definitely having fun. It hasn't stormed yet, but it's been rainy enough that my shoes have been wet for two full days. My feet dry at night, but then it's back into wet shoes. Most of the water comes off the plants that brush against my legs and drop into my shoes, but it's so humid that they never dry out. No blisters yet, though. |
|||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||
 |
Dead tree near Charlie's Bunyon, showing Packa and OR Nimbus Sombrero. Still no water. I was actually happy that it was raining b/c I'd hate to carry the Packa and hat but never use them. It's like wasting energy! I've really enjoyed myself today, even on the tough parts. I can't believe how great it is to be in the woods like this. I still can't get a cell signal, though...I'd like to call and get the X-ray results, see how the rental property is, check on the family, etc. Guess it'll have to wait. |
|||||||||||||||
| That picture looks much better without the ugly kid in front of it. |  |
|||||||||||||||
 |
I was only out of water for about 4.5 miles, but they were pretty strenuous miles coming up Dry Sluice Gap, so I was looking forward to my next stop, and really hoping it would be a clean source. Then I saw Icewater Spring coming right out into the middle of the trail. I was elated! | |||||||||||||||
 |
Since it looked so clean and it was coming right out of the ground, I didn't treat it...I filled up and drank an entire liter right there, chugging about 3/4 of it all at once. Heaven. Then I filled up both bottles b/c I had a good ridgeline hike ahead of me, and moved on...a whole 150 yards or so to Icewater Shelter to have dinner. | |||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
Stopping so soon meant I had some free time to relax, so I talked to some of the other folks in the shelter. There were 8 of us total - White Lightning (who got his name from being struck by lightning), two newlyweds on their honeymoon trip, a couple nearing their second anniversary, a young boy and girl (teenagers?) from Canada, and me. I also had more time to jot down some things in my journal, like...
It's not quite dark at 9pm, and I'm ready to doze off listening to the birds as I hear more hikers approaching. (Turns out they were three northbound thru-hikers on Day 14 (Redbeard, Minus and I didn't hear the third one's trail name), who ate a quick dinner and settled in. One of them hung a Hennessy Backpacker...pretty cool to see another hammocker.) | ||||||||||||||||