Well, that greeting may be pushing it a little bit, since all of the roads and the Park have been closed for almost a week. So I guess that my closet neighbor must live in Gatlinburg, which would be about ten miles away on foot!
The Lodge still has ten inches of snow and experienced -4 degrees temperatures last night. I had one visitor yesterday—a backpacker from Louisville, KY, came up Rainbow Falls Trail, arriving at the lodge at about 6:30 PM. I think that he had a 15 degree, 600 fill power sleeping bag. When he discovered that the temperature was already -5 degrees, and the tarp on the front of the shelter had been blown down by the wind, he quickly decided that he was a day hiker, and walked back down the trail, arriving at his vehicle at about midnight!
It was cold enough last night in the kitchen, which is heated, that large pots of water froze to the bottom of the sink.
Since temperatures yesterday never rose above 5 degrees, I spent much of the day inside the kitchen and tried baking apple cobbler. It turned out well!
HAPPY TRAILS!!
WILDCAT/Bert
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