3/28/21 Awoke after some rain overnight. Packed up the tent and started pouring with thunder and heavy winds. Couldn’t just put the tent again so filtered water and started hiking alone. Rain remained heavy, trail was a stream of water with wet leaves very slippery fell a few times no injury. Saw one hiker hiking down from the Mollies Ridge Shelter and one ridge runner. The rain basically stopped but then started raining heavy again. Kept hiking felt wet and cold went to Spence Field Shelter to change into dry clothes. 2 thru hikers were staying there that I met before. Their hammock nearly blew away in the storm so they were taking a zero day. One guy was doing acid and trying to build a fire. How can you thru hike and do acid? Decided to hike 6.7 miles to next shelter although it was late. It was getting cold and hike was hard with lots of climbing up and descents and took forever to reach shelter. Got to the Derrick Knob Shelter packed but they room for one more. So glad but couldn’t get situated as people were already sleeping. So basically no sleep.

3/29/21 No real sleep got up reportedly 22 degrees. Shoes frozen hard to get in and get going didn’t leave site until 11:30. Then beautiful day but hiked short distance got to Double Spring shelter around 4:00. Made sure I got a spot in the shelter with everything set so get early start tomorrow. Didn’t feel I could climb Clingmans Dome and get to next shelter before it got too cold and dark. Tomorrow supposed to be a nice day but cold and snow following that. Try to get out in 2 1/2 days. Pictures of Clingman’s Dome.