It didn’t take us long to figure out when it comes to AT weather, cold and dry is far better than warm and wet. This morning was a case in point: the 36.7° temperature kept us in our sleeping bags until daylight (which was OK as we were only planning 10.8 miles today), but when we did get stirring, we moved pretty quickly.

For most of its distance through Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the AT follows the spine of the park. First thing this morning we had to finish the climb up to the spine. Just as we reached that point where the trail makes a sharp turn and follows the state border, we are met by Metric and Sticks, two thru hikers we haven’t seen since before Franklin. We are quickly joined by Knief, who we last saw catching a ride into Hiwassee at Dicks Creek Gap. These young machos had all stayed at the “Fontana Hilton” shelter the previous night and had already made up that five miles on us (including a visit to the Shuckstack tower!). We convinced them to stop for a picture, saying that although not marked as such, the arrival of State #3 was a Big Deal. And then they were on their way. Ah, youth. We remember it well…

We were both in a better frame of mind today and greatly enjoyed the hike. We’d anticipated better weather, but on the whole the sun lost its battle with the clouds and wind, and we were reminded of yesterday when we walked on the windward side of a hill.

We had met Keystone at Birch Creek last night, but leapfrogging with him today gave us several chances to talk. He has two friends hiking a short distance with him, before he will be “orphaned’ by Hot Springs.

We passed several small fields today which spoke of days before the national park. The prettiest of these was the old orchard of Spence Field, where we turned off the trail for a short walk to the shelter at the orchard’s other end. As expected, nearly everyone we’d seen today had set this as their target, and even at 4 p.m., there was “no room at the inn.” As we pitched our tent, it was spitting snow and very windy. We had chores, dinner, companionship and conversation with our fellow hikers all done by 6:30 p.m., and retired to our comfy little tent. We expected another cold clear night, but instead the temperature warmed a few degrees back above 40° and a steady light rain settled in until after 11 p.m. The AT: expect the unexpected…