Day 34: Forrest service ruins the day!

Day: 34 Miles: 16.8 Trip: 302.2 Started: 290.2 Destination: Flint Mountain Shelter (but did not make it)

Finally at the top of the re-route

Started the day early to get a 2000 foot climb out of the way.  The weather was great with temperatures in the 60's and sunny skies.  Got up to the top at Camp Creek bald and had a quick snack and was looking forward to an easy ridge line hike for the rest of the day.  Well, that was not how it would go at all!  After about another four miles, I encountered a group of about twelve hikers that were stopped by a Forrest Service ranger.  We were informed that they Forrest Service was conducting a controlled burn and was using the AT as part of the fire break.  Some of the hikers had been there stopped for a few hours and from what I was able to learn, the Forrest Service had no plan whatsoever to do with us all.   There were already a dozen of us backed up and I knew there wold be about twenty more by the evening.  We were stopped by a side trail that led up to an access road and it was suggested that we all just camp there for the night.  The biggest problem was that there was no water in the area and most of us had planned on getting water from one two spots in the next few miles.  After this was brought to the rangers attention, it was decided that they would shuttle us around the burn, but where we would be dropped off would be about five miles from the trail.  The location they described was an easy grade fire road that we could walk back to the AT on.  Not wanting to waste the day we all opted for the shuttle.   Forty-five minutes later we had driven all the way back down the mountain and were dropped off in a parking lot with very little instruction except that we would find the trail 'up the road' in about 5 miles.  What they did not explain to us is that the road split about six times and was at about a forty percent grade starting about one thousand feet below where we had all started that morning.  All of the sudden it turned into a sixteen mile day with a five thousand foot climb!  The delay waiting for the shuttle had already wasted about three hours and it was getting late when we started up.  I remember the ranger that stopped us had said that we pretty much followed a creek all the way up, but others from the shuttle must not have heard that because by the time I reached the top nobody else came up for more than an hour.  They must have taken different forks in the road.  Near sundown some stragglers did come up, but by that time it was getting pretty dark and  we all decided to camp at the top of the fire road. 

Smoke from the fires

The biggest appointments was that they had no plan of action for re-routing the hikers.  They could have placed signs at some of the larger gaps.  If I had known about this in the morning I would have opted to camp for the day or stay another night at the hostel from the day before.  I understand they have very few windows of opportunity to conduct these burns, but putting up a few simple signs in the morning would have helped quite a bit, especially with the number of hikers on the AT this time of year.  One hightlight of the day was getting to see one of the first signs of spring.  It had to come sometime, I just wish it had happened while I was in the Smoky's.

First signs of Spring