A Limp in the Woods (Day 19)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 19: Friday, April 12th, 2013
Newfound Gap to Tricorner Knob Shelter area = 15 miles
Miles to date: 222

Gatlinburg

No Appalachian Trail journal, especially one as long as a Russian novel, would be complete without acknowledging Daniel Boone. Now that that’s been done, we’ll move on...

~~~~~~~~~~

Though I’d heard of Tennessee Williams, I’d never touched Tennessee prior to this trip. I’d been told good things about the Volunteer State, particularly about Knoxville and Nashville and a few other ‘villes. Gatlinburg wasn’t one of them. Found on a plaque in the city’s visitor’s center…

“Bill Bryson visited Gatlinburg during his hike of the Appalachian Trail.

He was less than impressed with the city…”

Why they’d volunteer to broadcast this eludes me.

My plan, had I planned a plan, was to zero here. No walking whatsoever, just some R & R in one of town’s repertory of pre-fab hotels. Feet up, food in, effort down, resting in peace. But once I got to town, I saw the advantage of not staying. Some places inspire like that. My self-imposed no-hike day would wait.

As had been the case with nearby Pigeon Forge (RIP), the place is an amusement park. The amusement is the waddling hordes. They come to shop and shove things down their gullets(1). Who are these people? To pigeonhole, they are this:

1. fat
2. uncultured
3. redneck
4. happier than I’ll ever be

After weeks in the woods it makes for fabulous spectating. The scene is equally dispiriting. It’s not hard to lose hope when examining humanity (RIP). It leaves me relieved I foster little. I’m a personal optimist, but a skeptic on and of the whole. My guess is that the vast mass of Gatlinburg’s waddlers don’t dare stray into the adjoining national park, for fear they won’t find any vending machines.

A small sampling of Gatlinburg’s large tourons

Town was only going to get worse over the weekend. There’d be an influx of folks ferreting out fast food. It was high time to hightail it. Restless Leg Syndrome had kicked in. The Nantahala Outdoor Center (another NOC store), offered a shuttle to the trail, gratis. The van left at 10am and I was walking by 11, alongside a whole host of humans who like to hike. We self-powered persuasion are a passing breed (RIP), but not on the AT. “Walking isn’t a lost art,” said Evan Esar. “One must, by some means, get to the garage.”

Unbeknownst to me, my body felt alight. On fire, not burned out. I must’ve slept wrong. Normally I’m the caboose in any given train--the straggler (or, as I like to say, “the mother hen”)--but here now I was The Little Engine That Could Kick Butt, steaming away on this temperate day. It’s strange, but I’d read the signs my body was sending upon waking as though it would favor laying dormant. Yet from the minute I started hiking, I felt invincible. “Don’t worry,” I told myself. “It ain’t gonna last.”

     But it did!

Usually, I depart towns achy and begrudgingly, having been ensnared by the trappings of civilization. The mountains call all right--they always do--but the reception is faint and forcibly forgotten. After a good meal and a good night’s rest, my body shuts down; the last thing I care to do is lug a backpack anywhere. The downtime always helps though, in that I feel great a few days after leaving town, having reestablished the rhythm of the ramble.

The rhythm here bade well, at least for the time being. The time not being might paint a different picture, but I decided I’d fret over that then (assuming the time not being even occurs then). When you’re getting up there in years, and when it’s on offer, you take what you can get.

Two hours in I reached a side-trail to Charlie’s Bunion (5,565-feet, with additional feet on top each spring), a protrusion of rock marked by a wooden sign. ‘GUARD CHILDREN,’ it said. I didn’t see any guard children around (RIP). I wouldn’t have put faith in any child guarding us. A guard dog, maybe. I directed focus on guarding the child in me. A fall from Charlie’s Bunion could well be fatal. The impending impact would be.

Fatty atop Charlie’s Bunion

Chuckie atop Charlie’s Bunion

Puddin’

The others caught up and we used the setting as a mock photo studio, striking the most un-striking of poses. The summit is a rare one in the Smokies in that it is free from trees, like a peak ought to be.

By late afternoon I’d stridden fifteen miles. It was one of my higher-mileage days, factoring the belated launch. I’m now ten percent into this mess. I don’t track mileage with any accuracy or emotional attachment; the miles are only one gauge of progress on a trail measuring, roughly, two thousand one hundred and eighty-six miles. The chief measure is simply being out here. At this stage of life--the roaring forties--I expect bad days and perhaps a few good ones. But I never expected to feel eighteen again. Tomorrow I’m sure my sensory-scored age will quadruple.

I shut shop near the Tricorner Knob Shelter (5,911 feet). I pitched camp above it, under the illusory protection of a heavy-duty iron horse hitch(2). I did this lest a tree tumble, now a legitimate fear. Trees are toppling like dominoes this year. (Never mind the animals; the forest is full of plants that want to hurt you; it’s not a matter of if a tree falls in the forest, but rather when. There are no last words when you die this way. RIP.) Unstable saturated soils are the root cause.

“It’s a strange to worry about a tree,” said Fatty, joining me beneath the rusty rail.

“And to think they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”

Above us, leaning our way, distressingly, an old tree looks ready to crumple at any time. Some of its branches are saggy, others broken. Like a family tree.

We’d cogitated seeking asylum inside the three-walled shelter, but its state left us wondering what our state might’ve ended up like had we done so; stately it is not. Perhaps we’d’ve shared the same fate as poor, ol’ Richard LeMarr (RIP), who slept in this very shelter just a few months ago, only to never wake up. LeMarr froze to death, succumbing first to hypothermia before solidifying. His expiration could’ve just as easily been from some sort of infectious disease he’d acquired inside.

Like every other one in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Tricorner Knob Shelter is scarcely fit for human--or horse--exploitation. Don’t even get me started on the privies in the park. This is somewhat expected when it comes to the National Park Service, but few hikers dare find fault; if it’s got a roof, it is plenty sufficient, and hikers can rest in peace. (This includes pursuing refuge in outhouses, if the weather is dumping...whether the hiker needs to or not.) Still, the lean-to’s condition lay testament as to why all but the most brainless of us lug our own (semi-)safe havens. Never mind the likelihood of shelter-bound snorers.

"Foot"note 1: Let it be known that shoving things down gullets is also a favorite pastime of thru-hikers.

"Foot"note 2: Horses (or unicorns, zebras, etc) are NOT allowed on almost the entire AT, except here in Tennessee, and only in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.