Section Hike #9 - More of the Great Smokies

September 5, 2014
Our goal for this section is to finish up the Smokies by hiking from Clingmans Dome to Davenport Gap (39.5 miles) over 3 days.

My good friend Kurt apparently had such a good time on our last hike in April that he decided to join me once again for this last section in the Smokies. I was elated to have him along for the trip. We parked our vehicles at the Big Creek Ranger Station which was located just a few miles off of I40 in Tennessee. Parking at the The Ranger Station will add about 1.25 miles to our hike, but apparently it worth the extra mile to ensure that our cars will still be there at the end of our trip.

In planning this trip, I decided to hire a shuttle driver to take us back to Clingmans Dome to begin our hike so we wouldn't have to kill 2 hours on Sunday driving back to get one of our cars. Luckily I ran across one of the more popular AT shuttle services online appropriately called... A Walk in the Woods. Not to be confused by the Bill Bryson book by the same title.

Kurt and I met up at the Ranger Station around 10:00am Friday and our shuttle driver was right on time.  A quick load up and we were on our way back to Clingmans Dome to begin our hike.