Great Smoky Mountain National Park   Dec 16-17, 2007
	1   2   3   4
Day 1	Newfound Gap to Tricorner Knob Shelter	Daily mileage: 15.6	Trip mileage:  15.6
Day 2	Tricorner Knob Shelter to Big Creek parking area	Daily mileage: 15.7	Trip mileage:  31.3
Day 1
Egads and his son invited me to join them on an overnight trip in the Smoky Mountains. Egads and I have been itching for a snowy trip, and they were predicting wintry conditions. I left Atlanta in the early afternoon on Friday and had made plans to stay at the Standing Bear Farm Hostel near Davenport Gap. Egads and Chris would be arriving later on Friday night, as Chris was flying into Atlanta around 8:40pm. I wouldn't say this hostel is the nicest place I've stayed on the trail, but it served the purpose for one night. I was the only one in the bunkhouse, so I choose my bunk and went about packing my gear for the following morning. I typically carry around 20-25 pounds w/ food & water, but I'm guessing I was close to 45 pounds on this trip. There was no heat in the bunkhouse and the owner said he'd prefer that I didn't use the wood burning stove. So I decided to drive down the highway about 20 miles to Newport and get some dinner and kill some time. Newport seems to be the 'happening place' in these parts. There were teenagers everywhere you looked. I stopped at a fast food restaurant and looked over our proposed route for the following day. We weren't sure if the road to Newfound Gap would be open or closed due to the weather, so we had to have a contingency plan as a backup. Egads and Chris arrived at the hostel at a little after 1am. We were leaving at 6:30am for our shuttle to Newfound Gap, so I knew they weren't going to be well rested at the start of this hike. The owner of the hostel woke us at the appointed time and we quickly piled our gear into his car and headed for the trail head. He was unable to get a definitive answer in regards to the road being open or closed, so we headed that way and hoped for the best. We checked in at the Ranger Station and received our back country permits. The ladies at the station said they were calling for temperatures in the low teens and wind gusts up to 60MPH over the next day or two. Fortunately, we were able to get to Newfound Gap before they closed the road. The salt trucks and rangers were at Newfound Gap and they were making preparations to close the road. The wind was very strong, and there was several inches of snow and ice on the ground as we started this hike. We took a few pictures at the trail head and then got moving to warm ourselves up! It's been almost two years since I'd been out in conditions like these, and I was definitely freezing my ass off. My knees and hips started to ache less than a 1/2 mil into the hike, and I knew it was from the damn weight I was carrying. I vow to never carry more than 30-35 pounds ever again. I simply don't enjoy hiking with that much weight. We were hiking in white-out conditions, so we were unable to take in any scenery. Visibility was only 20-25ft, so we focused on knocking out the mileage and staying warm. We took a short break at Icewater Spring Shelter. The wind was really picking up and the temperature was dropping. It was time to focus on getting to Tricorner Knob Shelter and hopefully getting a fire started. Surprisingly, we passed 7-8 hikers during our hike today. Not much else to say for the remainder of the time it took us to get to the shelter. Upon arriving at the shelter, we cound a group of college kids up from Florida. They were hopping from shelter to shelter, only covering 4-6 miles per day. They were not prepared for the wintry conditions, and were out there in jeans, cotton shirts and sweatshirts. I was in my sleeping bag 20 minutes and we arrived and I decided to skip dinner and read a book until I feel asleep. The college kids were being fairly roudy, but I was sleep within minutes and slept for over 13 hours.
Day 2
I woke up the this morning and the last thing I wanted to do was climb out of my sleeping bag. I was simply freezing! After delaying as much as possible, we decide to pack up and start hiking. Let's see... where to begin. Both pairs of my gloves were frozen stiff from perspiration during the hike yesterday. So I resorted to using my expedition weight Smartwool socks as gloves. My shoes were also frozen, and I simply couldn't get my feet into them. I was able to wedge one foot in, but it was so damn cold, there was no way I was hiking like that. So I decided to see how far I could make it in my TNF down booties that I slept in. They have zero arch support but do have a durable rubber sole, so I figured I'd torture test 'em and see how they do. The weather today was a '180' from yesterday. Yes, it was still cold (11° at th start of our hike), but there wasn't a cloud in the sky and a bright sun. The booties were performing quite well for the first 13 miles today. Then the trail turned from ice and snow to mud and slush, and the down booties started to get wet, so I knew I'd have to throw on the trail runners. Luckily, I had strapped them to the outside of my pack and they weren't as frozen as when I started this morning. I threw on the shoes and decided to pick up the pace the last 2.7 miles. I finished the hike about 45 minutes later and was glad to be done with this trip. The booties performed very well and I was impressed that there are no signs of wear on the booties. I thought the hike would have shredded the soles, but you can't even tell I hiked in 'em.