Number of Days Afoot: 4 days, Day 37 AT - Day 40 AT

Distance in 1978: 59.7 miles (96.0)

Clingmans Dome, 6643 feet, summited 10 April 1978 on Day 20 AT

Thunderhead Mountain, 5527 feet, summited 09 April 1978

None

Smoky Mountains National Park

Excerpts from page 85

IT RAINS ALL NIGHT continuing until eleven this morning. And then, the rain returns after only a two hour respite. This is a perfect day for me to (take a zero day and) catch up on my paper work.

Jim leaves during the rain break at eleven but Steve stays inside with me for the day. Reading the Bible, letter writing, and reading ahead in the guidebook is my task on this dreary day.

At five this evening, four more hikers arrive, set up their tents and then come into the shed to cook and each hiker has taken up a clever location so as to get the full benefit from the single sixty-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling.

We all sit here until late sipping on hot tea, sharing a few words at times but for the most part quietly, as we write in our journals and read whatever book each hiker carries.

Later, upon looking up, methinks it is such a fantastic feeling to be at par of this fabulous footslogging fellowship. (zero)