[at-l] 5

[Leslie Booher]

I had a night like that in the Smokies, too, at Double Springs Shelter back in about 1990.  We got in and settled, then a large group from a camp came in.  Unfortunately, they were missing a camper.  Hmmm.....  It seems that the leaders, college kids, had let the kids loose on the trail without maps or whistles.  Whatever happened to the 10 essentials?!  The missing kid had gotten out ahead of the group.  While the other kids cooked supper---quite an interesting affair to me; they had two matching stoves and a turkey roasting pan that they put across the two stoves and cooked their dinner all in the one pot---the leaders went in search of the missing kid.  My hiking partner went with them, for some reason that I don't remember.  Late, late, the kid came in with no pack and no shirt.  Another group was sent out to find the shirt and pack.  By the time they'd gathered his stuff and gotten back, it was midnight.  

At 2:00 a.m., three guys came up the trail from Newfound Gap.  They had worked late, then driven in from somewhere.  One was obviously the idea man, but he had no money.  One of the others had all the money: top of the line sleeping bag, cooking supplies, etc.  They were an interesting group.  At any rate, the idea man didn't have a sleeping bag, some excuse about his brother had lost it, and he was freezing.  I gave him my space blanket.  He slept like a top, but the danged thing crinkled and rattled every time he turned over.  Every time he turned over, I woke up.  We were in the shelters with that group throughout the rest of the Smokies (two more nights), and I sorely regretted sharing that space blanket.  <G>  He offered it back to me when he was getting off the trail, but I declined.  

A day or so later, we talked to some guys who had been at Mt. LeConte.  That's where the lost camper had fetched up.  They had turned him around and put him back on the trail to Double Springs.  But even they didn't seem to worry about his getting where he was supposed to be.  

And that's the way it was, moving north.

a'bear


I wish that i could remember the names of the shelters, but i can remember the "why", and approximate locations: the 1st shelter N of Thunder? Mtn in the Smokies: tremendous t-storm, cold, several hikers trying to stay warm and sort of dry behind a tarp, in runs a guy yelling that his sister and girlfriend are on top of the Mountain, freaked by the lightning, refusing to move, so off we go up the hill. Sure enough, the women are huddled next to/under bushes, hysterical. we somehow got them up and going downhill, and the ladies who had remained in the shelter had hot drinks ready for all by the time we returned, and donated their own dry bags for the night to the wet hikers. 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://patsy.hack.net/pipermail/at-l/attachments/20090710/b475593f/attachment.html