Well, we're back in Franklin now, and I'm trying to get my blog up to date. There's no Internet service up in the mountains here, so posting will be far and few between.
We planned to Slackpack the 11 miles from Mooney Gap to Winding Stair Gap today, should be an easy hike without packs. Unfortunatly we can't get a shuttle to the trail today because the people driving them are busy rescuing hypothermic hikers from the mountain tops. It's probably for the best, because with temperatures as they are I'm not sure I even want to be slackpacking out there. Our gear is not rated for this cold.
It is COLD out there. It's zero degrees in the mountains, with a 20 to 25 mph wind which makes it feel like -22. That's during the day - I can't even imagine how cold it will be tonight. Tons of people who made the decision to stay out in the cold last night are in dangerous conditions on the mountains. Hypothermia is the #1 killer of hikers. Luckily, Ron and KTR (the shuttle people) are incredible and are working their butts off bringing hikers to the warmth. So far over the last 2 days they've pulled over 70 hikers into safe conditions.
It's still snowing here, and they're calling for record low temps tonight, luckily we'll have a nice warm room.
I'll post more when I get a chance, but other people need to get on the computers now.
-Gadget-
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Hi Scribe and Gadget -
Nicole here! I'm Persistent now, just so you know. We're waiting out the cold in Fontana now...don't want to go to the Smokies yet :(
Good luck!
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