Nigel was up at first light as usual making tea and coffee and brought me a cup of tea in bed. No cooking in the shelter though it's not allowed so he had to go outside to cook. Once up we had our porridge, packed up and were hiking for 8:30. It was a cloudy start, it did try to snow, tiny snow flakes, for a while but came to nothing. Today's hike took us up over Thunderhead Mountain 5527 ft then down to Sugar Tree Gap. There were lots of ups and downs today, nothing too major just lots of them, more ups than downs though.
We came across two Ridge Runners today, Karl in the morning and Billy in the afternoon. Ridge Runners are employed by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy ATC and walk sections of the trail to ensure all hikers are safe, following park rules, have permits, checking shelters and maybe odd bits of emergency trail maintenance if required. There are about 30 Ridge runners covering the whole of the AT apparently. In the Smokey Mountains there are currently three to cover the busy thru hiker season. They do a great job.
We had some interesting changes in terrain today going over a few grassy 'Bald' sections, through Birch forest and also a small section of spruce forest. It made a change from the familiar Oak woods. The afternoon turned out quite sunny too which was nice. Our original destination was going to be Silers Bald Shelter but we decided to go an additional 1.7 miles to Double Spring Back Shelter. It seems everyone else had the same idea, the shelter is full tonight, 14 of us. There were three guys here, 2 section hikers and Heiko a German thru hiker when we arrived plus Isabelle a young Irish girl who's doing big 20 mile days. She started on 26th Feb and has caught us up already. She's hoping to finish the trail in 4 months which is much faster than average. Nigel gave her the trail name Roadrunner! So named because a couple of young lads tried hiking with her but couldn't keep up, always behind chasing her a bit like the cartoon Wylie Coyote and Roadrunner! Then gradually the large group of 7/8 youngsters we've kept bumping into since the NOC arrived, we call them The Film Crew as they are filming sections along the trail.
I thought we'd be in for a restless night with so many in the shelter but it was OK, not much snoring going on and everyone in bed at a sensible time. I heard no mice again either.
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