As we were driving up, we heard the news that Chattanooga was under water that morning. TN and NC had been experiencing abnormally high rainfall in the prior weeks, with Newfound Gap Road washing out just two weeks before our trip. The weather forecast predicted rain every day for our whole trip, and the flooding concerned us considering we were set to camp 10 feet from the creek that night and had multiple water crossings for our hike the following day. We rolled in to camp around 3:00 under a clear blue sky to see Abrams creek running low and slow past the campground, which dispelled any worries we had about floating away in the night. We spent the evening looking at cool bugs and phallic shaped rocks before gorging on potluck coconut curry and going to bed.

This was an oppressively hot and humid day made worse by the 6 or so miles of uninterrupted gradual climb. There were zero views until the very top which was bad for morale. However, the creeks were creeking and it was pretty cool. We had to courageously clamber our crew through a cool creek crossing. We were concerned it would be impassible due to the rains, but it was hardly knee high. We met lots of snail friends on the way and introduced them to each other. When we finally got to camp at the end of the long sweaty day, we had a little creek bath and Cal managed to start a fire in the wet conditions. One well-intentioned camper did a really great job at stacking a huge quantity of wet wood up on the fire so it would start drying out, and it worked so well that everyone decided to burn holes in their boots, socks, sandals, and sleeping pads in celebration of this wonderful warm fire. Despite our weather concerns, we didn't get rained on!

We paid our dues the prior day and the reward was a leisurely downhill hike the whole way. We stopped at indian flat falls to explore the swimming holes and climb around on the moss carpeted rocks like primates. It was awesome. After we got back to the vehicles, we drove 3 hours to balsam mountain campground on the other side of the park; we had to go all the way up through pigeon forge because newfound gap road was closed in Tennessee. Balsam mountain was beautiful and the temperature was much cooler than our prior days at lower elevation. We met this cool old guy named Charlie who was a local with endless stories about hiking in these mountains. He was up at the campsite with some friends and they had ham radio equipment which made for some very creepy background noise. Most of the group had spaghetti and grilled dino nuggets for dinner, but Mel and Lana just ate mouthfuls of kosher salt.

Because of the road closures, we could no longer access alum cave trailhead, which was our original plan. Instead, we started at newfound gap and hiked the AT and boulevard trail. On our drive up, we saw some elk off the side of 441. The boulevard trail was an incredible ridge walk, with tons of interesting plants and fungi, and everyone appreciated that it was less strenuous than the original plan. There were mountain views and wild blackberries the whole way up. By the time we got to the shelter, we still hadn't been rained on the whole trip which defied everything the forecast told us. Our rain debt was massive and it worried us. We walked out to check out the LeConte lodge and Cliff Top, where we met three shirtless dudes with the largest jar of peanut butter anyone had ever seen. We asked them how they got up here and they said they didn't know. We asked where their car was and how they planned to get down and they also didn't know. I've got a feeling they were alright though. We were laughing amongst ourselves as the peanut butter boys walked away, and that's when the rain finally caught us. We ran the half mile back to the shelter and hung around until it died down. We got visited by some search and rescue volunteers named John and John; they had been looking for an 11 year old boy who wandered off from the lodge. By the time they got us, the boy had been found, and they explained to us how SAR crews tend to handle these situations. As the sun was set and the sky cleared, we hiked back to Cliff Top to catch some pretty mountain colors.

The cool thing about LeConte shelter is that it has Cliff Top and Myrtle Point vistas within a mile facing west and east respectively. This means there's potential for a killer sunrise and sunset. We woke up before light on day 5 and night hiked out to Myrtle Point under a beautiful sky full of stars. The sunrise was exceptional and definitely felt like the highlight of our trip. We hiked back down the way we came and got to newfound gap around 1:00. On our way out, we made a stop by Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Dome) and saw a black bear cub on the side of the road!