Spreading Ginny's Ashes

Clingman's Dome Trail

Spreading Ginny's Ashes
Siler's Bald to Clingman's Dome (highest point on the AT) then down into Gatlinburg, TN

A wet and chilly morning yielded to crumbly breakfast bars while standing around in my sleeping bag. Someone re-started the fire from the night before and it really helped to lighten the murky mood. What a great idea! I sluggishly awoke and stood around with aching leg and feet, procrastinating, while Cyclone and Rolex took off early because there was rumored to be a Privy at the next shelter only 1.7 miles away. There was only a shovel and an arrow on a tree at this shelter.

The people who had come in from the north last night were talking about a couple of dead Boars just off the trail. I later ran into one of them. It was HUGE! I was freakin’ out thinking that something like that was running around out here just waiting to make a meal out of me and my two brothers! It was the size of a small cow! I hope I don’t run into one of these guys on the trail. They are deadly and unbelievably big. It was scary just looking at the dead carcass which was humming with flies and stinking in the sun. There are hunters here in the Smokies, hired just to try to eradicate the wild boar here. Boar are not indigenous to this area and they tear up everything; so, these guy go out with shotguns, machine guns, sub-atomic particle generators, and a water bottle to track the bastards and cut them down for the good of all humanity. All I can say is that I'm glad there aren't more of them running around.

Just before the shelter I came across a very friendly deer who wouldn't run away. I filmed it for a few and then went to the shelter where the guys there told me about that particular deer who had been hanging around all day. I later learned that two unfortunate hikers were killed by lightning in this shelter back in 1980 and I wondered briefly if their spirit hadn't manifested themselves as a friendly deer to comfort thru-hikers on their journey. Can you believe that? I must be going crazy out here!

Rolex was just clearing the privy when I got there. We headed for Clingman's Dome. The hike was cake even though we were going up to 6600 feet. We hiked together which was rare. We haven’t been doing too much of that lately. We keep getting into arguments. When we go to Clingman’s Dome, there were a ton of dead trees and we discovered that some European insect had ravaged them all. Cyclone and I went around to a secluded spot and spread Grandmom Patrone's ashes; Virginia Wilson Patrone, may you rest in peace. Here she was with us all the time and we forgot to give her a trail name! I think she used to like to be called "Ginny." Maybe we would have called her “Dusty.” We read the first part of Psalm 90 and filmed it so we could show the family. I plan on spreading my portion of her ashes up on Mt. Whitney in California next year, that way she'll be at the highest point on the east and west coast trails.

We dropped down into Newfound Gap. It was a pretty crappy climb down. I’m glad we weren’t going southbound and would have had to climb UP that bastard. We hitched a ride from a man and a woman who were very nice. I'd tell you their names except for this: She had just gotten out of a 90 day recovery facility and we talked a lot about that, coincidentally, I ran into a guy who had 17 years sober a couple of nights before at a shelter and we talked about recovery on the trail. I was glad to get to talk a little about it, especially before going into a town like Gatlinburg. These anonymous cats are EVERYWHERE!

We checked into the Grand Prix Hotel. After showers, we went to some steakhouse and chowed down. I took some of the steak back with us and we stopped at a grocery. They didn’t have the supplies we needed so we were going to have to take the trolley out to the supermarket. The entire town of Gatlinburg is serviced by these trolleys which only cost 50 cents. Rolex and I got on one to go out to a supermarket to resupply and the trolley took FOREVER to get there. Cyclone was back at the hotel doing all of our laundry so once again Rolex and I were naked under our rain suits, frantically streaming through the aisles of the Food City, grabbing our necessary supplies. The checkout girl told us she had done the AT twice with her father and we were dubious; but, far be it from me to dispute the authenticity of a 2000 miler. We tried to get all of our stuff as fast as we could so we could catch the trolley on the return loop but we didn't make it and ended up standing in the rain on the curb for 20 minutes. The food ordeal took us about three hours instead of the twenty minutes it should have and we didn't get to go to Karaoke. Cyclone and Rolex did the breakdown and divvy of food while I caught up on blogs. I’n finally getting to sleep and it is 3AM. Guh, we have a murderous climb tomorrow to get back up to where we were. Unless, of course, we take a Zero Day…

David AKA "Jukebox"


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