North Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Tennessee

When we last left our heroes they were trying to escape the clutches of the touristy town!

So the next morning dawned sunny with a few clouds. We grabbed a shuttle and went up to hike to Clingman's Dome, the highest point of the AT at 6,643ft (in North Carolina). We had to hike up a half mile on the wheelchair ramp from hell! People are stopping every 50 feet out so to take a breath and here's us trucking along with our heavy packs. A nice ranger watched our packs while we went up to the observation deck to take pictures.

This is the observation Deck you walk up. Completely open to the public! 

View just from the parking lot. The clouds had settled a bit in the valley. 

Cheeseballs at the highest point of the AT. 

So we made our way down to the next shelter. The silly thing about the Great Smoky Mountains is you have to pay and reserve a spot at the shelters, you can't just freely camp like you can almost everywhere else on the trail. As thru hikers, we buy a 'backcountry permit' which means we can stay in any shelter we like; however, if someone (day Hiker, section Hiker, overnight Hiker) comes in with a reservation and the shelter is full, we thru hikers have to give up our spot in the shelter. But the bonus is that when the shelter is full, then you're allowed to set up a tent! Oh and also, because it's federally run, the privys have wheelchair bars. Never mind that there's steps only to get to the privy and obviously the trails aren't paved. But whatever, that's government for you.

So anyway that night, we stay at Mt. Collins shelter and in the shelter registry ( a notebook in every shelter that hikers write notes in about whatever. Kind of like a Hiker FB feed) for 3 pages, everyone was talking about beware Buddy the red squirrel. We weren't there 5 minutes and saw this red squirrel. He was very bold! He was sitting on a tree stump 8 feet away from the shelter so when Rob went to grab his camera, this little shit ran right up to about a foot from him! Also, while Rob' & my backpack were suspended on the food cables 15 feet of the ground, this little jerk chewed through Rob's back pack and into his food bag. Apparently he decided ramen was beneath him cause that's as far as he got. 

The next day we hiked on and got amazing trail magic. This lady had backed her car into the parking lot and had coffee, doughnuts, crackers, fresh oranges and other stuff for the hikers.

We kept hiking and about mile 5 we started hearing thunder in the distance and saw huge black clouds rolling in. We got a bit misted on but reached the shelter 5 minutes before it stated pouring and even hailing. After a 16 mile day, it was just nice to be dry in the shelter (now in Tennessee)! 

The next day was a record speed day for us as we did 13 miles in about 6 1/2 hours. We were again racing the clouds and rain. When it's sunny, it was 85 degrees with 80 - 100% humidity. Wet heat, dry heat, doesn't matter, it's all hot and your sticky and soaking wet after awhile! It's definitely more relaxing to listen to the rain patter on the roof of the shelter when you know you and your stuff is all dry.