Days 27-31, Saturday … Wednesday, March 10-14 (Quintuple Zero)

We all made it down to breakfast to discuss our plans after a good night’s sleep. We had looked at the weather report for the upper Smokies and it was not good. Initially, I thought we were stuck in town until at least Monday because of an expected snow storm coming on Sunday.

After breakfast, Stickers, Lady Bug, and Patches headed up to switch hotels. We went up with Dancing Dog and Trail Runner to their room. They had decided to rent a car and head back home today. I thought it was because of the weather. It was then that Dancing Dog showed us her blister. It was huge and made me hurt just looking at it. There was an additional blister next to it plus there looked like bruising on the back of her leg. It looked like she had an infection, now. All this in addition to the digestive issues she’s been having since the second day of our trip.

Dancing Dog had to argue with Enterprise to finally get them to agree to come pick them up at the hotel rather than throw their packs on their backs and hobble the 30 miles to the rental office. We all sat in the lobby together until the car arrived. This being Gatlinburg, right next to Pigeon Forge, we ran into Dolly Parton in the lobby. She graciously agreed to a photo op with four little hikers from the boot heel of Missouri—she can still relate to her humble beginnings. Let me tell you, she is thin!

After the ladies left, did we proceed to do laundry? No. Did we do some grocery shopping? No. Did we shower and make use of porcelain for the sheer joy of it? No. What did we do? We went to the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC)—the equivalent of a dark, drug alley to a crack addict if compared to a thru-hiker. We went gear shopping!

With a bag full of goodies for the trail, we proceeded back to our room, spread out all of our new gear, fuel, and dehydrated meals out on one of the beds along with everything we already had. Then, we rolled on top of it to get the fragrance all over our bodies, just like a dog rolls in poop in the yard after you give it a bath. Clearly, showering and laundry had to wait some more now that we had immersed ourselves in the scents of backpacking. We considered catching the trolley to get to the supermarket. In the end, we just went to Walgreens and bought enough “crap” to make it to Hot Springs, NC whenever we do make it back to the trail.

Sunday, after 36 hours in town, we finally broke down and headed over to the next hotel to do our laundry. Literally, every piece of clothing we owned was dirty. Bunny used her rain kilt and rain jacket to wear while the clothes were being washed. I thought the kilt wouldn’t quite hide enough. In “hind” sight, I would have rather worn the kilt. I chose to wear my down jacket on top and my rain coat on bottom—I immediately felt very drafty once my pants were in the washer. I backed out of the laundry room and found the closest bench to glue myself to until the laundry was done.

Of course, in this town filled with tourists, the first people we see are people we know. While sitting on the bench, Patches and Lady Bug see us and come over to talk. Patches looked at the way we were dressed and seemed incredulous that we were just now doing laundry. As my hind side was sticking to the wooden bench and airing out nicely in the breeze, she made the observation that she had once loaned her flowered hiking shorts to a guy so he could do laundry. Up until now, she thought that was the worst way she had seen someone dress to do laundry. At least now, someone might remember me after this hike.

The weather forecast continued to deteriorate. We changed our plans to leave Tuesday morning once the road to Newfound Gap reopened. However, the conditions on top of the ridge are calling for additional snow Tuesday night with 40mph winds and a -9 F wind chill factor. Wednesday calls for a good chance of snow showers with a high of 27. Wednesday night shows improvement over Tuesday with winds of only 25mph and a wind chill of zero with a raw temp in the single digits. In short, the weather conditions on these two nights are worse than the weather which forced us out of the mountains last Friday.

Normally, we come to town to get a shower, use some porcelain, eat a nice meal at a restaurant, do laundry, catch up on blogging, buy groceries to last us until the next place we can get supplies, and get a good night’s sleep. All this we can normally do in less than 18 hours. If we are feeling particularly tired, we might stay for two nights and take a “zero day.” We are stuck in town for 5 zeros in a row on this stop (and we are not alone—the town is filled with lots of people we thought we’d never catch up with again).

Some folk have decided to jump ahead to get out of the Smokies (Mizman, Lucky 59, and Pepper Pot) but we are reading about these conditions continuing all the way up to Damascus, VA. Even jumping ahead, people are getting forced off the trail. We found out today that Finnegan got frostbite on his thumb. He looked down and wondered where all the black had come from only to realize… We have been told some of the flesh has recovered, but we don’t know his current status.

The Eagles “Hotel California” keeps running through my mind. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” We are stuck in Gatlinburg; aka the Branson of the east; aka the place where dreams die; aka hell ‘lite’ (backpackers always choose the lightest option available). We are very stir crazy and short tempered. We have eaten out enough to satisfy all of our hiker food fantasies. We just want to get hiking again. Come hell or high water (or knee deep snow), we will return to the trail Thursday morning.