May 14: Double Spring Gap Shelter to Icewater Spring Shelter via Clingman’s Dome, highest point of the AT

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Well the night went well, no rain just a constant medium breeze. There were two young men who wanted to get up and out of the shelter by 4AM so they could see the sunrise from Clingman’s Dome. Both were still in the shelter sleeping soundly when we got up at 7AM. The one with the watch couldn't hear the alarm with his hand down inside his sleeping bag! We had a continuation of the previous evenings levity as everyone made breakfast, we all took group photos on at least five different cameras. We were lucky to clear the shelter by 9:05AM and start the 2.9 mile hike up the dome. The shelter sits at 5,507' and the dome is 6,643' so we had just over 1,100' to do right off.
The day was overcast and as we climbed up Mt Buckly (the mtn before Clingmans) we crossed the divide of the western drainage and the eastern side. When we did this there was a change from hardwood trees to conifers. Cold wind buffeted us as we neared the dome. Arriving on top was sort of a let down. Everyone made such a big thing of us walking all the way up there. When we were about 100 yds from the fancy viewing tower we stepped from the AT onto a paved approach
road/trail that comes from a parking lot just a bit lower. Bus loads of school kids and teachers were running and walking towards the tower. Everyone smelled nice. They had way too few clothes on and only had to walk a few hundred yards to get to a place that had taken us weeks to reach. We were treated like zoo animals almost. "Look at the hikers," people sort of turned up wind as the crew of smelly hikers pushed to the walk of the tower. The top of Clingman’s is covered in dead, and almost dead pines and brush. There is a fancy concrete spiral ramp up to a tower so you can enjoy the view. This view, although nice, can in no way compare with the climb and view from Katadhin in Maine.
As we started down into the pine and spruce trees the rain started and we put on our rain gear. From Clingman’s down to "Newfound Gap" (US441 between Gatlinburg, TN and Cherokee, NC) there has been quite a bit of devastation. It was unlike the ice storm damage in Shenandoah last year with a few trees down and tons of branches on the ground. Here individual as well as groups of trees have been blown over leaving their entire root structure lifted up in the air. We saw no less than thirty such trees, some small and others as large as 3'+ in diameter. Their root balls as large as 30' across. The wind and rain beat us up for the remainder of the day. One sad point of the day was we said good-by to Phexen who was walking with us off and on from Springer Mtn. He has been with us constantly from NOC. He was the source of many "Most Excellent" conversations. We will miss his company (really I will miss the fresh brewed coffee he made) and would like to tell his parents they did a great job bringing him up.
We reached the shelter by 4:15PM. Five people were already there settling in for the night, three thru hikers and two park hikers. CC was starved and wanted supper right away so I set to the task while she organized the sleeping area. Once we had eaten she asked if I would start a fire to take some of the chill away. We were lucky as some nice person had hiked a tarp in and the front of the shelter was mostly closed. The shelter even had a fireplace. With some coaxing I managed to get wood everyone else had deemed "too wet to burn" to do a fine job of producing heat. Just about the time we all were tucked in for the night, three guys who had hitched into Gatlinburg stumbled in and called it a night. There were lines strung from one end of the shelter to the other, making it look like an 1800’s laundry. We had done a 13.8 mile day and now were all toasty warm in our bags out of the wind and damp for the night.

Patrick, Deborah Mooney aka OD & CC
All Who Wander Are Not Lost

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