I was a late starter and fell behind the others for most of the morning. We were heading in to Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a resupply and hopefully a festive meal. On my way to catching Blueberry Crisp and Flatlander, I came across a woman who had fallen and injured her elbow quite badly. She wasn't handling it well. I had some painkillers with me to help with the swelling, and got her to her feet before her party showed up to walk her out.
I raced down past hundreds of day hikers and came to a parking lot thronging with people and we realized the 15 miles to Gatlinburg might be a lot more difficult than anticipated. Luckily, Cinderella and Waterboy had a shuttle arranged for drop off, so we hitched a ride into town with them.
Gatlinburg, it turns out, is nothing but a tourist trap with overpriced motels and ridiculous attractions like the Guinness Book of Records, and Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Do not recommend. We were almost stuck staying there, when an angel appeared and offered us a ride. He turned out to be mildly insane, but in a friendly way.
The long day and weekend meant that we fully expected our shelter to be full of weekend hikers. Luckily we were wrong and had another shelter just to the three of us.
There wasn't much time to celebrate though because it was late, so we quickly went to bed to get rested before Clingman's Dome tomorrow.
Start: Peck's Corner Shelter
End: Mt. Collins Shelter
Distance: 14.5 miles
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