Surprisingly I slept pretty well for being on a slant. I think it was close to 8:00 before I rolled out of the tent. I felt blessed that it was not raining when I woke up so that I could get everything packed up. It was already going to be a mess to get all the wet gear packed up, the last think I needed was rain.

We got started at 9:20. We decided to start hiking in our camp shoes since we had several stream crossings right at the start. We ended up hiking about 2 miles in them before donning our boots. But within my first 5 steps I found my self going into the splits while trying to get down to the first water crossing. What a way to start the day.

It was a nice walk back to the car. The trail was mostly wide and well graded. It looked like it used to be an old road. And the trail meandered next to Little River which gave us sights and sounds to walk to.

All and all it was a great hike for a total of  15.6 miles. I knocked off 2 more trails on my Smokies list. The Little River Trail and Rough Creek Trail. And 4.8 miles of the Sugarland Mountain Trail.

We saw a bear on the side of Clingman’s Dome Road on the way back to my car.

While we awoke pretty early to start hiking we didn’t get started hiking until around 10:30 since we had to do the car drop thing. We also had to run by the back country office at Sugarlands Visitor Center since I left the reservation information at home (turns out I didn’t need the #).

We finally made it back up to Clingman’s Dome Road to park our car at the Fork Ridge Trail  area. We had a short walk on the Appalachian Trail before we hit the Sugarland Mountain Trail. The elevation for this entire hike was mostly downhill. This doesn’t necessarily make a hike any easier. It may be easier on the lungs but it can be harder on the body.

The trail seemed out to get me right from the get go. The trail was kind of rough with alot of rocks and roots. Well I stepped on a root an lost my balance because it was wet. I didn’t fall but I felt something in the side of my knee feel wierd. It went away after a couple of minutes. All along the trail I was tripping on rocks, some parts of the trail were hard to see because of overgrown grass. It sure it made it alot more challenging than I thought it would be. We did 4.8 miles on this trail before connecting with the Rough Creek Trail.

We finally made it to the Rough Creek trail crossing. We opted to take lunch break here since the profile in The Little Brown book showed this as being a fairly steep descent. It was such a nice spot that I layed back and raised my feet up. I probably could have taken a nap.

Rough Creek Trail actually turned out to be a nice trail. The descent was much milder than the book let it own to be. It started raining a bit while we were walking so we put our pack covers on. It wasn’t enough rain to get us wet but who wants to rush in the even that a down pour occurs.

We made it the 2.8 miles on Rough Creek Trail to the Little River Trail. Only 1.8 miles to Camsite #30 for the night. We had a bit of an elevation gain on this but it was pretty gradual. The bigger challenge would be the stream crossings that the book talked about.

Well we finally make our way up the trail and hit the 1st of the 3 crossings. Sweet Pea made it across fine. I kind of slipped on the first rock and was quite nervous. I kept walking on the rock trying to figure out my strategy. I finally said to heck with it and took my boots off and put my Crocs on. While I was trying to kick my boot off with my other foot I realized that I had really hurt something in my knee, from that earlier slip in the day. I figured I could hike about a half a mile in my crocs since we had 2 other crossings. The second one was nothing but the third one was. Sweet Pea even put her crocs on. It was quite the adventure. Kind of reminded me of Maine but not as big.

Campsite #30…..we finally made it.

We picked a secluded spot through a little rhododenron tunnel. It had a place for a tent and her hammock. We proceeded to set up our home for the night and it started raining. I quickly stowed my stuff inside the tent. It quit shortly so we were able to cook dinner then it started raining again…sigh. I ate my dinner in my tent being very careful not to spill anything. Ramen with Babybel cheese melted into it. And dark chocolate cheesecake by Backpacker’s Pantry for desert. It finally stopped raining again so we packed up all our smelly stuff to hang on the bear cables.

A couple arrived around this time. They were setting their stuff up as we chatted with them for a minute when it started pouring down rain. I tried to run to my tent but that wasn’t happening. I could really feel my knee when I did that. I made it and zipped my fly shut. Layed back and relaxed listening to the rain. I look out my tent and realize there is a pond forming at the base of my tent. You have got be kidding me. I sat in my tent pondering what to do. I had water pooling under my tent. I finally dragged myself out of the tent to move it….I look around….the whole site is a freaking pond….I had about 2 feet I could my tent back to get it out of the pond. Which meant I was at an angle all night. I hate the combination of tents and rain…and the mess that goes with it.

The following is an excerpt from fellow Dame SHOE’s recent hike.  I hope you enjoy it!!

Me and Sweet Pea spent another weekend wandering around in the Smokies.

We met up at the park on Friday night at the Smokemount Campground. It was definitely cheaper than staying in the hotel room. I made it to the park and was worried…as I was driving into the park from the Cherokee NC side there was a flashing sign that said Little River was closed. This wasn’t a good thing as our get out point where the 2nd car was to be was to be at Elkmont off of Little River Road. I went into the visitor center and they called and assured me that we would be able to make it to Elkmont. So all was good.

I headed on down the way and there was a huge traffic jam. I figured it was some kind of wildlife ans I was right. On the left side of the road in a field was a whole bunch of elk. I pulled over like all the other tourists and got out to take pictures. I was really amazed at some of the people. One lady was dragging her young children closer and closer to the elk. I bet she was no more than 20 feet from them. Crazy crazy if you ask me.

SHOE (Slowest HIker On Earth)