day 4

We are waiting for water to boil aside the AT, just west of Newfound Gap, 2 miles shy of our destination for the night. We broke camp early this morning, hitting the trail at 6 am, our headlamps illuminating the pathway. It is a wonderful part of each day. The feeling is like being on the moon, or exploring a dark deep cavern at the ocean floor. We are both quiet, slowly stretching our sore muscles, anticipating the break of day. The sky brightened today over endless green-grey misty mountain ranges, shrouds of thick wet cloud hanging in the valleys. Most of the morning we walked the back of a sharp ridgeline, with steep declines on both sides. Views on the left, including the distant snaking double track of the four lane I-40, which we had passed late two evenings prior, were of North Carolina. And to the right lay Tennessee. The heavy clouds rolled over the ridgeline and cancelled the boundary which our rail was defining. It was time all to ourselves. Occasionally!
we'd stop to consult the map, just to track our progress and get an idea for what we had in store later in the day.
It turned into a long one. We misjudged distances between water sources and ended up doing a good 12.3 miles before finally sitting down on a chilly bed of damp pine needles for a drink of water and our daily oatmeal. The weather had shifted; clouds wre passing swiftly and bringing on chilling and damp breezes. While the walking was nice, we were beat and preferred to just sit and relax for a bit. This proved impossible. The same thing happened this evening. Just as I started writing this entry, a burst of thunder crashed somewhere off in the valley and within seconds pellet plops of rain were pounding down on us. I quickly tossed the emailer in my pack and in the midst of a whole spat of frantic cursing and fumbling we were able to rig up a miserable little makeshift shelter out the the groundcloth which I've been using as a pack cover these past two days. We shoveled down our cous cous and corn chowder and were up and moving within ten minutes as the rain slowed an!
d we made our way down the muddy trail to the Mt. Collins shelter. The crowd in the shelter is much moe agreeable than last night's gang. So much so that they're all already asleep. Last night's marathon conversation about absolutely nothing dragged on deep into the night (trail time translates this to mean at least 11pm). Anyway that's all I've got in me for tonight. It's up and over Clingman's Dome first thing in the morning. We'll be wearing our space lamps.

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