March 22

Heading  toward Clingman's Dome tower today which is the highest point  along the entire AT at 6655 ft.  The hike is 10 miles to the Dome  lookout.  I did 12 miles of hiking yesterday.  The  trail weaves in and out between the North Carolina  and Tennessee border within the national  park.  The weather this morning has been great but it started  to rain at the  lookout around  3pm soon after I arrived.  I went  down  to  the  parking  lot  thinking  I could  catch  a ride  into  nearby  Gatlinburg  for a quick  resupply but  there  weren't  any cars there.  I spoke  to some other  people  that were there and they said  they hiked  up from the main road, 7 miles away!  So I started  to walk down the road with them.  It turns out the road  to Clingman's  Dome  doesn't  open until  the  31st.  In all I walked 7 more very  tiring  miles to Newfound Gap, making  for a 17 mile day.  I came across some very kind folks from Indiana at the Newfound Gap parking lot who gave me a ride into town.