Blisters and Balds
Our first night in a tent was a cold one. We had setup a clothesline inside the tent to try and dry our some of our wet things but with the cloud cover rolling in outside, and the condensation from our breath on the inside, our clothes didn’t dry at all. At least we were warm and dry inside our sleeping bags.
When we got up there were fresh bear tracks near the tree where we stored our food. Luckily our food was far enough away from the tent that we are pretty sure he didn’t meander through camp. We packed up our things and headed back up to Gregory Bald for one of the prettiest sights during the trip. The weather was gorgeous, the clouds were off to the southeast, and the view of Cades Cove was magnificent. We stayed there taking pictures for about 30 minutes before heading down the trail towards our next campsite.
On the way down we met a guy who was taking a day trip to Gregory Bald and talked with him for about 10 minutes. He was from near Nashville, but often made trips out to the smokeys to get away. He told us of a few of his stories and also where some of the camping stores in and around Gatlinburg were before we parted ways.
We reached the next campsite we were supposed to stay in fairly early, around 12:30, because the terrain was almost completely down hill. After taking a dip in the stream and grabbing a few snacks we decided it wasn’t worth hanging around all night when we had so much daylight ahead of us so we loaded our packs on our backs once again and finished the 1.9 miles to Parson Branch road. When we reached the road we noticed that there were 4 cars parked there, and assumed they belonged to the 4 sets of day hikers we saw heading for Gregory Bald that morning. Since parsons Branch road was closed to traffic because of washouts, we knew that these cars would need to exit the same way as us and hoped we could hitch a ride.
It wasn’t long before we saw one of the cars and stuck out our thumbs. It just so happened to be the gentleman we talked with from Nashville. When we jumped in he told us that we weren’t far from the trail head. However, he thought we were parked at the visitors center instead of the ranger station, so we were in fact about 8 miles away from where we needed to end up. I was so glad that we had a ride since I already had 4 blisters on my feet and I really didn’t want to walk an additional 8 miles along a road that day.
After parting ways, changing into some nice dry shoes, and trying to get a campsite ( they were full ), we headed off to Clingmans Dome. CD is the highest point in Tennessee and we were hoping that we could get some wonderful pictures of the surrounding area. Unfortunately, like the rest of the trip, Clingmans Dome was surrounded by clouds. What a bummer.
More pictures can be found at this link.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 5 of our 5 day hike!
