Les Jones

East Tennessee > Mt. Collins Backpacking Trip

(The cable modem is still flaky, so I took the laptop to a wi-fi hotspot last night to upload these pictures.)

I took a few days last week and went backpacking in the Smokies. The original plan was to to to Icewater Springs, but they were booked up and I wound up going to Mt. Collins instead. Mt. Collins is on the Appalachian near Clingman's Dome up in the high-elevation spruce-fir zone. It's like going to Canada, complete with flying squirrels.

Some backpackers try to avoid people when they go out, and some don't like the shelters. For me, it depends on the trip and what I want out of it. I tend to go to shelters on my solo trips for the company, and generally find folks at the AT shelters to be exceptionally nice.

There were three other people at the shelter that night. Jenna and Paula were co-eds from Pennsylvania. They had planned on going to the Adirondacks, but that area was blanketed in rain, so they drove to Tennessee instead and got to enjoy much nicer weather.

The other person was a fellow in his seventies named Paul Johnson. Paul's an interesting character. He had been an enginer before he retired. He had programmed computers for the US military to monitor Soviet compliance with the SALT 2 missile treaty, worked on the Panama Canal, and lived in some interesting places and had some interesting wives and kids. He's apparently a regular on the forum at TheBackpacker.com under the handle slimmernow (he used to weigh 288 pounds and keeps his weight under control with regular backpacking).

Paul lives in Melbourne, Florida now. His house got hit by one of the hurricanes, and he's backpacking in the Smokies while they fix it. His goal now is to spend the night at all of the campsites and shelters in the park before he gets too old and has to give up backpacking. He says outdoor author Johnny Malloy is doing that same thing. That sounds more fun to me than hiking all of the trails in the park, which a lot of people are doing.

It was a good trip, as usual. Staying out overnight is a great way for me to get a little perspective on things and recharge my spirits.