Day 22 - Mollies Ridge Shelter to Derrick Knob Shelter - 12 miles

This is a terrible day - really hard, really difficult ups and downs which seem to go on forever.

Wildflowers are erupting everywhere. Digby is amazed that 'triliums' exist as real plants, are not just a sci-fi quest. The shelter provides us with our first view of chipmunks - they move really fast and are really jerky in their movements. We catch them out of the corner of our eye.

There is dead forest everywhere - trees uprooted from huge storms. Conifers are dying from insect attack after being weakened by atmospheric pollution. This is particular sad, when you read the history of how people in the 1930s fought to protect them against powerful logging interests. The pollution comes from the power stations in Tennessee and we read that they are now trying to control the levels.

 
We pass the Russell Field Shelter, which has a bear cage at the front to keep the bears out and the hikers safe. They don't build these cages anymore - they ask hikers to take their food away from the shelter and hang it from a tree.

Alison and Pocohontas Mode at Russell Field Shelter in the cage

Pocohontas Mode

Wizard from Oz, Pocohontas Mode and Tripper

We enjoy the company of 'Pocohontas Mode' a young woman we have seen regularly on the trail since about Day 5. We overhear her calling her mum on her mobile phone 'Today I walked 19 miles, yesterday I walked 21 miles, etc etc.' We are surprised that she is still in our cohort of hikers, given how fast she can walk. I ask her why the trail name of 'Pocohontas Mode' which does seem a trifle strange. She replies 'When I am hiking I go into the zone - I feel at one with the landscape, like an Indian - I call it my Pocohontas mode.'

Derrick Nob Shelter - two levels of sleeping platform and a fire.
Hang the packs to avoid the mice.

We have a great social evening in the shelter, singing along with Food Network playing his ukelele. He had learned the chords for Waltzing Matilda, which he had downloaded at Franklin, and Digby sang the words. There were three older women who had nearly finished their AT hike which had taken them nearly 10 years doing a section each year. They had great voices and knew the words of every song sung in a musical in the past 50 years. The sound boomed out from the shelter. We never had another night like this one. It was very memorable.