Day 24 - Mt Collins Shelter to Icewater Spring Shelter - 7.5 miles

A leisurely start for a short day with bad weather forecast with thunderstorms. We head off from the shelter and are passed by everyone else. An easy graded walk mainly downhill descending to Newfound Gap. Newfound Gap is a shock - people, cars, buses, and hundreds of day trippers. The highway crosses the Smoky Mountains at this point - it is the only place where cars can access the national park.

Arriving at Newfound Gap

Thru-hikers at Newfound Gap

'We are here' - the sign shows the AT trail marked for the full distance.
We have walked just a few inches!

The highway drops down to a town - Gatlinburg. The description of Gatlinburg as a tourist town offering a 'disney' experience makes us decide to continue on the trail at this point. We leave Mandog, Pocohontas Mode to hitch a ride to town. We never see Pocohontas Mode again - I had really enjoyed her company. She is one of the 90% of thru-hikers who start and do not complete the trail.

We climb up the mountain from the gap, passing many tourists, with our heavy packs and steady rhythym. The weather starts to close in as promised. We make it to the shelter before lunch, and then the temperatures drop and the rain starts. There are two thru-hikers already at the shelter - an old man of 79 and his son, who also spent last night at the shelter . They have lit a fire and are cooking up tortillas and melted cheese. During the afternoon, more hikers dribble in through the wind and rain. We snuggle down into our sleeping bags and fritter away the afternoon.

By 6pm there are no more spaces on the bunk platforms - about 12 people on the top layer and 12 on the bottom. The rule in the Smoky Mountains National Park is that all hikers must book to stay in a shelter. There are 4 spaces left unbooked for thru-hikers. The rule is that if the shelter is full, with booked people,  the 5th thru-hiker  has to vacate the shelter and set up camp. All thru hikers carry tents. The reality is very different - as the weather closes in, and the bodies increase everybody keeps squeezing up to make room to fit them in.

We are woken up at 10pm by a young man in his 20s arriving with his mother - poor mum - she has hiked in the dark in freezing temperatures and heavy rain and mist for 3 miles to this shelter, trusting her son to look after her. The group all squash up and squeeze them in. At around midnight another group arrive. Everyone is asleep, squashed in like sardines. The latest group have to sleep on the dirt floor.