Miles: 207.3 | Low food, low morale, and another storm on the way push us into a last-minute decision to head for town. A long, snowy hike brings us to a silent, surreal Clingmans Dome — beautiful, cold, and completely empty — before anxiety, bad cell service, and full-blown hiker hunger take over. After scrambling for rides, lodging, and calories, we finally land in Gatlinburg, celebrating a rare win with a hiker discount, a pizza buffet, and the relief of warmth after days in the cold.
We woke up early and walked quickly. We made the split decision to go into town. You see, my 'Hiker Hunger' finally kicked in... I had eaten my '6 Days' worth of food in about 4 days. We were all running low on food and morale. It had been a hard few days. In addition, a rain storm was on the way which would bring slush and ice.
We hiked all day through the snow. We made it to Clingman's Dome around mid morning. The day was beautiful but the snow had fatigued our muscles. We were all tired. Clingman's was beautiful, but cold. The views were incredible and with no one else there I felt privileged and also like I was in a Dystopian novel...
After a few pictures we quickly moved off the dome in favor of less windy weather down below. With little cell service that day I scrambled to find accommodations for us in Gatlinburg. It was a weekend, the last weekend of NC spring break, and we had a dog with us. I phoned my Mom for help. Hangry, I freaked out on her a little (sorry mom).
We also weren't sure if the road to Gatlinburg from Newfound Gap was even open that day. I struggled through crappy cell service to find the Smokies government web page to find out they don't update it daily. If the road was open we could go to town, but we would need a ride to town and somewhere to stay once there. Oh, by the way, we passed mile 200 sometime that day...
Usually, I find it very difficult to get to town without any plan at all. I hadn't planned on going into Gatlinburg in the first place and now I was going and without any plan. I need to find accommodations, laundry, food resupply, dinner for that night, and a ride to all of it. I was freaking out.
I hiked as fast as I could. Josh sped ahead of us because he was cold. Tang and I powered through. With two miles left until the gap Tang went ahead of me to see if Josh managed to get a ride into town at the gap because we couldn't get a hold of any shuttles.
When I arrived at the gap, Josh had secured a ride with a local trail named Montana. She was planning to hike next year. She drove us down to the NOC (a satellite store run by the real NOC). We thanked her for the ride and put our packs down on the rocks near the parking lot.
We bought gatorades and stroll wafels inside the store while we tried to figure out where we were going to stay. I was stressed out, hangry, tired, and overstimulated. My phone wouldn't work after not having service all week, even though it said I had 4 bars and LTE.
Mom came through, finally, with three rooms. We ended up walking down to the Travelodge. We walked in with our packs on to check in. The woman at the desk told us they did a hiker rate! We were ecstatic! After all, something went in our favor. We went up to our room and found a coupon for CiCi's Pizza buffet, conveniently right around the corner. We went over there as it began to rain. Turns out, CiCi's has an incredible condiments selection: parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice! Tang was the only one who had any pockets so we filled them all with condiments. Classic hiker trash.
Back at the Travelodge we called down to the lobby to find out if they had anything available for the next night because we need to do our resupply, laundry, and it was supposed to rain tomorrow. They didn't have anything available. After calling around every budget hotel in town, we found a room at Motel 6. But they required us to book two nights to get the room. We decided to book it and take an extra zero, after all we'd been cold for days.