What a fantastic day today, my favourite so far I think. We woke up to a beautiful clear frosty morning. We were breakfasted, packed and on the trail for 8 am. Today we past the 200 mile mark! We also went over the highest mountain on the AT, Clingmans Dome at 6655ft. We summited Mount Buckley first 6585ft before hitting Clingmans Dome passing some great views on the way up. It had a great observation tower at the summit and because it was such a fine day we had fantastic views. It was early morning when we were there so it was quite cold and windy at the top.
From the summit it was down to Collins Gap. There were some very icy sections on the way down the north side of the mountain, the trail was like a frozen waterfall with 2 - 3 inches of thick ice. We were glad of our Yaktrax which made descending so much easier. Once we hit the gap it was up again to Mount Collins 6182ft. We were walking through Spruce forest for much of today which was a nice change, it did mean our views were blocked by the denser green trees, unlike the Oak forest which is not yet in leaf and it was a lot colder in the spruce, the sun unable to penetrate. When in the sunny spots it was lovely and warm though. There were lots of fallen Spruce trees throughout the forest, some with massive root bases, one even had a boulder in its uprooted roots. They are huge tall trees but only have very shallow roots for their size, no wonder they fall easily in big storms.
We came to some bizarre metal stiles over fencing where the forest changed immediately from Spruce to Beech. These fenced off 'Beech Forest Enclosure's' are special sites containing native plants and animals that have been identified for fencing against wild hogs who would damage the habitat. Once back over the fence we were back into Spruce forest again. We passed a couple of very friendly weekend section hikers from Tennessee who were heading for Fontana Dam. They had come prepared to meet thru hikers from the opposite direction and kindly gave us a bit of trail magic, 2 Snickers bars. Nigel was happy, I don't like Snickers!
Not long afterwards on our descent down to Newfound Gap two trail angels came hiking towards us, Mark and Wendy Booth aka Godspeed and Mountain Momma. They told us they were providing trail magic at their truck down at the gap so followed us back down to the road US441 at Newfound Gap parking area. It was very busy there today with day visitors it being the first sunny weekend of Spring. We sat in the sun and they made us sandwiches and gave us crisps, chocolate cake and cans of pop. It was fantastic and came just at the right time because we are running short of snacks for during the day. Godspeed and his son are previous thru hikers. Their Trail Angel message to thru hikers is: "It's more than magic! We serve the hiking community because we love God. His creation and his people. It is our hope and prayer that you find ultimate peace while on this pilgrimage. Our wish is that your blisters be few and your memories filled with adventure and joy. May God bless your journey.". They provide trail magic every Friday and Saturday at the Gap for the busy thru hike season. Thank you so much Godspeed & Mountain Momma, your kindness and generosity was really appreciated.
From the gap it was about 3 miles to our shelter for the night, Ice water Spring Shelter, elevation 5939ft, the highest we've camped at. This section of the trail was really busy with day hikers. Already at the shelter when we got there were two young thru hikers Moxie and Ibex and a hiker trio, Seeker plus 2 friends. We are all camping as a group of eight weekend hikers, four dads and four sons, also arrived and are sleeping in the shelter. The dads were bringing their 14 year old sons out on their first hiking/camping trip for a few days. We think the dads were possibly enjoying it more than the kids, reliving their youth! Everyone's all very friendly, we all sat around chatting.
It was as a beautiful warm sunny afternoon when we arrived so we sat and relaxed in the sun for a while before setting up our tent. We tucked ourselves up in our tent about 7pm, it's a clear sky evening and started to get quite cold. It warmed up a bit during the night but got quite windy, gusts of wind kept blasting our tent. It's strange as you can hear the wind coming as it swirls its way around the mountain.
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