Sun! Finally

So I finally got some sun so I can update people on my progress. I dunno if I will do a full one or just do a few days, we will see how my thumbs feel typing.

On the 20th we hit an outfitter in Johnson City thanks to Miss Janet and after chores and all you can eat Chinese we got back on the trail at 5:30pm and made 4.2 miles to Curley Maple gap shelter. The 21st we went 7.5 miles to the top of Beauty Spot and hit awesome trail magic... We slept there. The 22nd we did 14.5 miles to Clyde Smith shelter. We got there in the slushy rain and decided that on the 23rd we would zero there due to weather. On the 24th we did 14.5 miles in the wind and snow to Overmountain shelter. On the 25th we did 15.7 miles and camped next to Elk River. On the 26th we did 17.3 miles and camped just before Dennis Cove Rd. Today, the 27th we have done 9 miles and I have hit trail magic and MIGHT move on. Now a more detailed description of events. Since it's been so long since the last update I think doing things chronologically will help me remember things.

Miss Janet was completely awesome and drove us around for 5.5 hours. The result was I had a lighter, warmer weather sleeping bag, some new socks and some larger shoes. UV got new shoes. After the outfitter we had a great meal of Chinese food, then wet to the post office to mail home old gear and then went the grocery store to get cheese. All this was accomplished because Miss Janet is great! Not a lot of miles were made but it was a nice day where I felt like a lot was done.

The next day started good, great weather and the miles were going good. At noon we got to the top of Beauty Spot and saw great trail magic! A group of '09 hikers had gotten together and it was awesome. Storyteller organized it and Grits provided a lot of the magic. You might remember Grits was one of the people that provided pancakes a while ago. He had some dangerously good apple moonshine. Chance was there, triple crown hiked over the last three years, was there with free Darn Tough socks and outdoor research hats. It's awesome magic when you get free gear! After eating lunch... and then eating dinner... and then eating breakfast with the group we moved on into the rainy weather. The weather was cold and wet but on the trail you can't be that surprised with that.

By the time we hit the shelter that night it was sleeting and before long it began snowing. The section hikers in the shelter with us were definitely not impressed. That night it was freezing cold and continued snowing. Using mountain-forecast.com I checked what was going to be happening on top of Roan Mt. 20 degree weather and 50 mph winds were happening. UV and I decided to not get out of the sleeping bags and the section hikers decided to hike off the trail and go home. This worked out since they gave us all their food and the zero didn't affect our food supplies. Peach also caught us during that day and stayed with us. It snowed over half the day.

The next day we decided we had to make some miles so we got a late start but moved into the snow. My cold weather hiking attire now consisted of a t-shirt covered by an uninsulated rain jacket. Needless to say it was cold to start but after moving it was pretty good. Roan was cold and snowy but it had good tree cover (photo of trail up Roan below) so it wasn't too cold. My phone battery died on Roan so no more photos for a bit. After Roan we had to walk across balds for a while and despite the beauty of treeless mountain tops, at 25 degrees, with high winds and snow, I'll take trees. On this section of trail some day hikers accused me of stealing UV's skirt when they saw me in a kilt. Despite the slushy, muddy trails and UV getting a bit lost in the snow we made it down to a shelter at 4600 feet and it was quite a bit warmer. The Overmountain shelter was pretty cool, it is a converted barn that could probably sleep 40 people.

The day out of Overmountain had us doing a ton of ridge walking along balds. The weather had warmed up into the 30's and maybe 40's so it wasn't nearly as bad. The trails were horribly muddy though, making traction on ascents a bit difficult. The whole day it kind of threatened rain and/or misted but it was better than freezing cold winds! By the end of the day we had dropped in elevation so much it was down right warm. We camped along the Elk River, which is one of the few real rivers we have seen so far.

We awoke to more rain. It ended rather abruptly AFTER getting our tents packed away but that's still better than nothing. Today we passed the 400 mile mark and it rained a bit but besides that it was just another day on the trail.

Today started good with the earliest start in quite a few days since it was warmish and not raining. After a relatively simple 9 miles we hit trail magic in a lakeside park. All kinds of food on the grill and cold drinks. I ate so much food I felt sick and decided since it was nice and sunny I would sit here and write this instead of moving on.

Oh and I forgot to mention all the photos so here is a rundown of them. The group of people is Beauty Spot trail magic. The guy holding a shoe over a stove is how you can get boots that are frozen solid onto your feet in the morning. The snowy trail is going up Roan. There is a photo of a friendly deer. There is a picture from inside the shelter we zeroed in as Peach arrived. Finally there is a picture of Swiss getting water from the side of a church. The guidebook said it was a water source but there definitely was no sign or anything. UV said it would be fine since churches were supposed to be giving.

Well, I guess I got caught back up. I have digested most of the food and should move on at least a bit. It is now 6:30 pm and I've been here enjoying some magic for hours. Still a few days out of Damascus but now that I have 100% battery again I should be able I do better. Hopefully the cold doesn't come back and eat my battery!

Cold but fine

I have basically no cell phone battery so super short status update until the sun cooperates more for charging.

It's cold and snowy but I'm doing fine. Taking it really slow due to weather and other factors that I will explain in a more lengthy post. Maybe sending all my cold weather gear home in Erwin wasn't the brightest idea...

Erwin

So on the 18th I did 15.8(ish) miles to a campsite at Spivey Gap (Mom, there was some road that had a route # there if that helps you find it for the map). I had expected there to be a fair number of people there, it was just me and UV tenting there. On the 19th I did 11 miles into Uncle Johnnies hostel in Erwin. The last few miles were annoying, Erwin was in sight forever just taunting me as I switchbacked down the damn mountain.

So I had some rain again. I had become so spoiled by the weeks of dry sunny weather. The weather wasn't all that bad for hiking but stopping was a bit miserable and all of my gear was wet. The only dry things I owned was my sleeping bag and my extra set of socks. Not a long list... Other people were terribly cold while being wet but luckily I was able to avoid that. For a few hours I hiked without a shirt on, which drew exclamations from others. My internal furnace just works overtime, what can I say?

At Uncle Johnnies Spiller found me before I checked in and informed me that her and Tyvek had a 4 person cabin and it would be the same price as the bunkhouse. Seemed like a decent option so me and UV took the beds in the cabin. Having the ability to spread all of your gear and food out somewhere is quite helpful. I got a shuttle in to the post office to get my food boxes and so I could mail out some of my cold weather clothes. When I got back from that Spiller informed me that Miss Janet was arriving in a minute to take two people to free food. Spiller gave up her spot since she is getting off trail tomorrow so me and UV got some free potluck dinner.

This was a dinner for an elderly hiking club that Miss Janet was giving a speech to. Me and UV were joined by Dreamtime and Trog as "show and tell." It was quite a unique experience I think, the average age of the member of this club was somewhere in the upper 70's. They were quite active and maintain a portion of the AT. One person had a shirt on that said "90 and still hiking." The food was good and I had some interesting conversations with the members. Hopefully I can be as active as they are when I'm in my 80's.

Probably a late start out of town tomorrow. I still have a bunch of errands to run but some miles will get done, I just don't know how many. Sorry for the lack of photos in this post, my phone was dead for the last two days. Oh and I got my kilt today, already seems great! I'm sure I'll have a photo next post.

Some trail thoughts

On the 16th we did 15.7 miles to Jerry's Cabin shelter. By we I mean me and UV since Nitrous did a 32 mile day to commemorate the Virginia Tech shootings where 32 people died. This means he is now about a day ahead of us but I think we will catch him in Erwin. On the 17th we did 14.8 to Hogback Ridge shelter.

Early on the 16th we came down a hill to a road and saw a sign that read "Trail Magic - Belgium waffles, pork stew, ice cream and cold drinks. 350 yards down the road to the left at the house with a concrete driveway." That sounded amazing so off we went. At the top of a steep driveway was a nice house. At the door we were greeted by a nice older gentleman named Hercules. He ushered us in to the dining room and sat us at the table, which already had 5 or so hikers around it. We had full silverware setup with white cloth napkins and were asked if we wanted the waffle appetizer, of course we did. After the waffle I had some pork stew, they had veggie stew for people like UV that don't eat meat, and some homemade raisin bread. After that we were offered the choice, warm apple crisp with ice cream, warm blueberry crumble with ice cream, warm fudge brownie with ice cream or just out of the oven warm bread pudding with pears, apricots and cranberries... topped with ice cream. As I sat there contemplating my options UV went with the brownie, I quickly followed suit (photo below). After that Fal (Hercules' wife) asked if I would like to try one of the other choices as well. How can you turn down an offer like that? The bread pudding was delicious as well. During dessert they did talk a bit about religion and offered to give us some free books on Christianity but they weren't that preachy and even if they were with trail magic like that I would have gone along with it. It turns out they thru-hiked in '99 and now spend a lot of time doing this. They said annually they feed roughly 400 hikers, what great people.

Besides that nothing amazing happened the last few days, we walked in the woods. Going up and down a lot. To kind of demonstrate what I think about sometimes when I'm hiking I'm going to share some philosophical musing I had today. Many times when I am hiking my mind wanders and I start contemplating deep questions. Anyway here it is... WARNING Below are rough thoughts that came to me while my body was using a lot of my energy for mountains. Take it with at least one grain of salt.

If an atheist lives a "good" life is it inherently more "good" than someone who lives a "good" life because they were told to, fear eternal torment or are hoping for eternal reward. The logic here being that since the atheist believes there is nothing after death, being "good" is only something to do because it is the right thing to do. Whereas someone who believes in something after death might do "good" things not for the act itself but for the reward or fear of punishment, even if subconsciously. It also means that the only truly selfless acts must be performed by those that believe in nothing after death. I spent about 3 hours pondering this basic premise today and it seems logically sound for the most part. The easiest counter argument would be that you can't live a "good" life and be an atheist but that point could be debated. If anyone knows a philosopher that has thoughts similar to this let me know, I might want to read their work. Also let me know if you think it makes no sense at all, there is a distinct possibility of that.

Lastly, I leave you with a photo of a typical bear cable to try and bring some of the more mundane parts of trail life, to life.

The Ice Cream Goddess

Here's another update. I'm really going to try and do them more often so they don't take me so long! Also, adding dates to the brief summary as per a request.

On the 14th we did ZERO miles and stayed in Hot Springs! Completely awesome. Today, 15th, we did 11 miles to spring mountain shelter. Not as many as we had wanted but we were a bit lazy and got a late start.

So my first zero day was pretty amazing. The waitress that had witnessed my ice cream failure the evening before brought us a half gallon of Eddy's thin mint ice cream and a pint of Ben & Jerry's phish food along with some contraband spoons from the restaurant. When I tried to pay for the ice cream she refused any money. Ice Cream Goddess you are amazing! (photo of her with UV below) On a side note, doesn't the sleeping bag liner dress look like an actual dress? It works out well since UV can wear it around town and keep normal clothes clean. After getting the most amazing kind of trail magic, the almost ordered kind, we sat across the street and ate all of it. Nitrous refused to help claiming he was full, which I just don't understand. After me and UV polished off the half gallon, getting some very odd looks from passing motorists, we shared the pint with Trophy Wife. All in all, amazing way to spend the afternoon.

That evening we (Me, Nitrous, UV, Trophy Wife and Bob) spent an hour soaking in the naturally hot water in a hot tub at the spa. So relaxing! UV had the idea to get Popsicles for the occasion but with less then optimal pre planning time. This resulting in all of us enjoying some slightly chilled juice tubes while our muscles finally felt good. It ended a great day but at the same time the day felt wrong. I hadn't hiked... I am so in the groove of hiking that spending hours of the day doing it is what makes my days normal. It felt good to get back on the trail today for a return to normalcy. I guess it doesn't really take that long to completely alter what you think of as normal.

Today's hike was not all that eventful except for the fact I saw my first potentially poisonous snake (photo below) and there was a fire tower (photo below as well). While the view from the tower was decent it reinforced that this view is my house now. It isn't surprising or new or all that breathtaking anymore. I have it for the majority of the day, all I have to do is look to the left or right and there is a view that "normal" people would fid amazing. Since I have become so desensitized to these sights I am going to try and capture what I refer to in my mind as the small beauties of the trail and maybe some of the more nitty gritty of trail life. Since I'm bored of taking pictures of random mountains I'm sure some of you are bored with the repetitiveness of them as well. Some of them will still be included but I'm going to try and mix it up more. We will see how that goes.

The Delayed yet Verbose Update

I realize it has been a while since my last update. Every night I check to see if I have signal, don't, and then don't bother write an update since I can't post it. I think I will try to take a page out of Nitrous' book and write the update anyway and post it when I get signal in the middle of the day, which I always do. We will see if I am that motivated.

I am going to try a bit of a different format for this post. I will give a pretty quick outline of where I was and then go into more detail on a few things. I don't know if it will be better but I just wanted to try it.

So from the day after the last day I wrote about we did a 15 mile day to Siler bald shelter. It wasn't a bad hike, it seemed like I was starting to get my hiker legs. The next day we did another 15 mile day to Icewater shelter (I think that was its name). This involved hitting the highest point on the trail, Clingman's Dome. The day after that we took an "easy" day of 12.7 miles to tricorner knob shelter. The hike was pretty easy that day but man was it cold, as well as crowded. We fit over 20 people in the supposedly 12 person shelter. This worked out since it got down to 20 degrees that night so warmth was needed. The next day we did an 18 mile day to get to standing bear hostel. It was the easiest terrain we had done yet and did the 18 miles in under 6 hours. Out of standing bear we did 13 miles to max patch mt. Nitrous went on to the shelter but me and UV cowboy camped on the very top. From there we did 20 miles (first 20!) to a hostel in Hot Springs.

So we come to the more stream of consciousness part, here it goes. This week seemed to be a week of milestones. First we hit Clingmans, the highest point on the trail, then a mile later we hit the 200 mile mark. The day after that we hit mile 218 which marks 10% done which was an odd feeling since it feels like I have been walking forever. Lastly when the whole week was put together it makes for the first time we have done 100 miles in a week. We did roughly 108 miles in the last 7 days which is pretty insane. It feels good to have these all done but at the same time it almost feels inconsequential. None of them really mean anything.

I guess I will go through some events that stood out over the last week, this will be much easier when I buckle down and write these more frequently, I have a feeling this is going to be a very long post. When we reunited with Peach she gave me a skirt she had found in Franklin, knowing that I had issues finding a kilt. Somehow she knew I would be a size 8, which I still don't really know what that means because female clothing is stupid, and it fit! I tried it out for a day and it worked fairly well, the breezes were great and there wasn't any chafing. The big downside was it was silk. While the lightness is often looked for by hikers it makes skirts a bit billowy in the breeze. I decided commando in a silk skirt on narrow mountain trails was nice for me but not others. It all works out though because my Mountain Hardware Elkommando hiking kilt is less then a week away! If you want a picture of this I think Nitrous put one on his blog.

(This new method does not necessarily use transitions it just jumps topics, hopefully it isn't too jarring. Let me know if you find it so.)

Clingman's Dome was a bit disappointing. The hike up to it was pretty easy and the peak itself was nothing special. I will include a picture of myself on the top just since it is such a milestone. The most interesting point of Clingmans was day hikers chatting with me. Some old ladies said "Wow, your calf muscles are huge!" It made me chuckle. They all seemed impressed that we had come from Georgia while all I could think of is how small that distance is compared to what we are all planning on doing.

The night after Clingmans was nice though as it was the first time it got below freezing (I think). The next night was even better, it got down to about 20. This was memorable because we crammed more people into the shelter then I had seen up to this point. On the top row alone we had (in this order) two section hikers, Peach, UV, me, Whistle Tits, Kennedy, Sheep, Rampage and the Georgia Boys. Not bad but it did require some serious cuddling to make it all work. Whistle Tits decided my mat was much more comfortable then hers and used her self proclaimed magical and aggressive sleeping butt to conquer it as the night progressed. All in all though it was a good night.

During that day we hit some trail magic at davenport gap (I think). It had been a kinda tough day and the trail magic was really close to the end of the day so loved it. (Photo below) While a bunch of us sat on the curb eating candy and drinking soda we discussed how odd this aspect of the trail was. The note with the candy said "Happy Easter Hikers." Easter was the day before... So the "normal" people at the gap taking pictures witnessed a small group of dirty, smelly people wander out the woods, find some day old food on the sidewalk of the parking lot and scream with joy as we dove into it. We then proceeded to take out stoves and cook first dinner. The normal people either ignored us or came and chatted with us and wished us luck. If this exact same thing happened anywhere else in the country other then a very narrow corridor along the AT we would just be bums and would be quickly dispersed. It's kinda funny, yet AWESOME!

The 18 mile day out of the smokies was surprisingly easy and ended with trail magic which was pretty awesome. It also ended with Standing Bear Hostel, which was... Odd. All hostels along the trail have their own vibe and feel but this one was the most unique yet. To give some idea I will explain how paying works. Below is a photo of the resupply pantry, you take an envelope and write down your trail name. Then you write down everything you take and how much it costs. This includes services like bunks and Internet or phone use. You then total it up, make sure it is all written down correctly, put the requisite money in the envelope and put it in the money box. No employee handles money, or checks in people for the bunks except to give a quick tour if you ask. There is no check in or check out time. Can a place get more laid back or thrive completely on the honesty of others anywhere else in the world? If so I haven't witnessed it. This is a great example of the AT hiking community. Everyone tries to pay it forward and help the community as a whole. Even the party hikers are like that for the most part, just got to watch for weekenders and some section hikers. They aren't always the same, but they can be.

The day after Standing Bear finally got me to some actual "balds." Balds are mountains that are naturally treeless but not rocky or above tree line. At the first one I stopped for two hours and had some lunch (photo below). It was pretty good, a wrap with a cheese danish and crushed Oreos sprinkled on it. This is not usual fair but I had stocked up on junk food in Standing
Bear since it was two days to hot springs and I was going to enjoy it. The second bald was Max Patch. This was the first truly awe inspiring sight that I have had along the trail. It is so alien to anything that we have in new England. I am including quite a few photos of this one so I'll try explaining them in more detail. I got there at roughly 4 in the afternoon with the plan of going to the shelter 2 miles past it. Nitrous suggested waiting until sunset and then night hiking the final 2 miles so we get a great view. One photo is Nitrous at the other side of the peak which shows the size of it. You have to look pretty hard to see him. As we all cooked dinner waiting on the sun the temperature dropped quite a bit and the wind picked up. To stay warm I decided to just hang out in my sleeping bag. It was worth it for the awesome sunset pictures (sunset pictures all have a post in them, this distinguishes them from sunrise that have a bush). UV had also decided to hang out in her bag for this and we both decided it would be nice to cowboy camp here. Cowboy camping is when you just use sleeping bags, no tent or other form of shelter. This would make the sunrise and the stars amazing. We just shifted roughly 200 feet to get out of the direct wind and flopped over. The stars were absolutely amazing. Laying there looking up with no lights within miles, at almost 5000 feet, just beautiful. The night was a bit chilly, probably 25-30 judging on the amount of frost, but between our 15 degree bags and what shared body heat could get between two 15 degree bags it was great. The sunrise was completely worth it too (remember bush is sunrise), these were taken while I was laying in the exact position I slept in. I took my phone into the bag so I didn't have to do anything but take some shots. Eventually we had to get up, 20 mile day and all.

Well, we made it and we are zeroing here in hot springs. It is strange to think tomorrow I will wake up and not have to hike. For over three weeks every single day has involved hiking. I think my body could use one day of rest. It is adapting pretty amazingly though. My hiker legs are pretty much here, I never stop on ups now. Even if it is a 4 mile uphill section I usually just pause momentarily once or twice for a quick drink. My legs can pound it out now. Unfortunately my feet are not quite at the same point. They hurt, constantly. I am also eating a rather absurd amount of food. For example, tonight we went to a bar that sounded decent. I got a pretty good sized burger with a side of jalapeño poppers. By the time Nitrous had finished applying condiments my burger was gone, along with the chips that came with them and some of the poppers. I asked the waitress where in town I could get some ice cream, she said some store but I should run since it closed soon. I ordered another burger entree to go and ran. No ice cream! Back at the restaurant I finished the second burger entree while she was running our cards. I sheepishly handed her the to go box and said that I guess it wasn't needed. On the way back to the hostel I noticed a place that looked promising. It didn't have pints but it had an M&M ice cream sandwich. I got one of those, skittles, an almond joy and a Cadbury cream egg. When we got to the hostel only the skittles were left and not for long. That is an example of a town meal for me these days.

Alright this has taken me like 90 minutes to type on my phone and my fingers are sore now. I will really try and write more frequently! Tomorrow I'll be in town all day so if you actually want a response comment, email, text or call me that day (14th). Otherwise it's back to the woods.

The Smokies

So leaving the NOC was an 8 mile climb uphill. Overall I didn't think it was really that bad, I think my hiking legs are starting to come in. At the first shelter we decided that we had some in us so we pushed to Locus cove gap to camp, about a 12 mile day. While there some of the wolf pack caught up to us. The wolf pack is a large hiker bubble that has been traveling up the trail. Their attitude seems to semi-mimic a really friendly fraternity. They seem nice enough but they tend to stay up later then me so it is a bit of a change of pace.

The next day we did almost 11 miles to cable gap shelter. This set us up for a nice, easy 6 mile day into Fontana. More of the wolf pack caught us here, Atlas played his guitar into the night and they would all howl every time someone else rolled into camp. I think there was roughly 20-25 members there by the time everyone was there.

The next day was foggy but once I climbed out of the fog it made for a pretty amazing view (photo below). Besides that it was an easy 6 miles to fontana. Once at the road we called a shuttle and got a ride to the village. Fontana village is a created resort town thing for tourists, which is odd since they also cater to hikers. Almost every car there was some sort of sports car but there were a ton of oddly clad hikers wandering around. I was walking around in just long underwear because everything else was in the wash. Definitely an odd dynamic. Fontana was good though, two boxes of food from the parents (thanks!), showers, laundry and dinner I didn't have to cook. After time in the woods it doesn't take much to make one happy.

Today we found Peach! She pulled some miles and caught up to us. It didn't last long though cause she didn't make the shelter we are at. We hiked across the dam (photo below) and headed into the smokies! Today was a rough 15 miles of climbing up into the mountains. At the first peak we hiked .1 miles to a tower for an amazing view down at the dam. (photo below plus a random view with me in it) Looks like quite a distance to do in 2-3 hours but my legs felt great.

At the first shelter we stopped for dinner and saw a dragon. After dinner we decided to keep going and made it to Rufus field shelter. The thing about the smokies is there is no camping except at the shelters. This really restricts the options for distance. Another thing is all the shelters used to have cages across the front so bears couldn't get in. Hikers were feeding bears through the cages so they were all taken off. In the short term this means the bears think the shelters mean food and they don't have a barrier. Hopefully they will learn to stop associating shelters with food but for now it seems "interesting." We are planning on doing the smokies in 4 nights so we are pushing some miles now but I think we can do it. My hands are freezing so I apologize for any mistypes, I never proofread these things.

More Info

If anyone wants a different perspective...

Button's trail journal - postholer.com/button
Nitrous's blog - athokie2012.wordpress.com/

Just thought it might be interesting to get a different perspective. I haven't read them much so I don't know what exactly is on them.

Clean Again!

When last I posted I was at rock gap shelter. From there we were trying to push our longest day yet, 15 miles. The day started out pretty good. At the first gap, winding stair gap, there was a bag of oranges left as trail magic. It was a nice way to power me through the start of the day. At about the middle of the day we started going up Wayah bald mt. After roughly 2-3 hours of going up I figured I was about at the top. I came around a corner and found a sign that read "Wayah Bald - 1.8 miles." It was the most depressing moment yet.

After that 1.8 miles I hit the top and Santa's Helper was there with trail magic. A depressing day was immediately turned around. Santa's helper is amazing, he traveled 5 hours to do trail magic and will continue to travel up the trail throughout the season as hikers get further north. What an amazing guy. Also at the top was a great view from a stone tower (photo below).

That night we stayed at Wayah Bald shelter. The following morning, after about 2 hours of hiking, we came upon a big tent. Since it was roughly 10am I assumed it was just some weekend campers. As I approached Nitrous called us over. It was more trail magic! Possum and Grits were making blueberry pancakes. (photo below, the people are Nitrous with his pack on, UV with the bandana and Gator) they also had candy bars and carrots. They were in for the long haul too, they had arrived the night before doing dinner trail magic and were staying there until Wednesday doing trail magic the whole time. It's things like this that make the experience so amazing and also makes me want to give back to the whole community when I am done. It is like we are part of a big family, everyone helps each other and looks out for each other. Just amazing. The hiking for that day was pretty reasonable, 10.7 miles to Wesser Bald shelter. Wesser bald also had a tower with a great view. (photo below)

Today we took an easy 6 miles to the Nantahala Outdoor Center. It has laundry, food, beds and showers! The little things become amazing after six days in the woods. Tomorrow looks like a rough 7 miles of uphill but in 2.5 days we should hit Fontana Dam and then it's on to the smokies.

It seems like more people are getting way more into following me then I had expected. If you are looking for more info I would suggest getting the AT Guide written by AWOL. It has amazing descriptions and info about features and also has an evaluation line that shows what the climb/descent is like at all parts of the trail.

North Carolina

Disclaimer - I wrote this a day ago but didn't get enough cell signal to publish until now so it is a bit out of date.

Leaving Hiawassee I was hoping to get the 9am shuttle back to the trail, between me running late and the shuttle being completely full I was on the 11am shuttle. While not the start for the day I had been hoping for, it turned out to be awesome. I had a bit more time to pack things into my bag in an orderly way and when I got off the shuttle some trail angels were providing trail magic. (Trail angels are people that help out hikers, with rides, information or most commonly trail magic. Trail magic is basically anything given to hikers for free. This is usually food or alcohol but theoretically can be just about anything.) Anyway, they had a grill going and some homemade pound cake, it made for an amazing start to the day. I pulled a 12ish mile day and slept at the muskrat creek shelter that night.

During those twelve miles I finished my first state!! So long Georgia, it was a nice 80ish miles but I'm glad I'm done with you. (photo below) As you can see I had some chafing that day, hence the shirt tied around my thigh. It was a nice milestone to be done with a state but at the same time it wasn't as monumental as I had thought it might be.

The first mountain in NC was a complete killer though. I don't know its actual name but I have dubbed it "asshole mountain." It seems appropriate to me. The next day, I made it another 12+ miles to some shelter that started with the letter c. (I'm in bed and the book is in my bag.) It was a rather nice day, my legs felt good and the chafing was a lot less since I hiked in only my boxers. The only downside of the day was it started bucketing down about a mile before I hit the shelter. If it had held off a little more I could have made it in dry. It wasn't overly bad though, I wasn't wearing any clothes really so not much got wet!

Today was the day the group broke apart. Emily (now Peach) and Bunny didn't make it as far as we did and the Incredibles and Button went to the road and got a ride into Franklin. They are planning on zeroing (no mile day) there tomorrow for a bit of a rest. Left with me is Ultraviolet and Travis (now Nitrous Oxide) and we seem to be doing about the same distance. We made it another 12+ miles to Rock gap shelter (I think, the shelters are starting to blend together) and plan on traveling together until Fontana Dam at least.

Another milestone is the fact that I hit 100 miles hiked today! It was at the top of some mountain with a fire tower (photo below). It is a bit of a misleading milestone though since the mileage on the trail changes on an almost yearly basis. For example, this year the measurements have the trail 3.5 miles longer than last year. At mile 102 we saw a rock that had 100 miles written on it. It is a good thing we had been told to look for it because it was quite small. (photo below)

Lastly today I am going to slightly vent about trail design on this part of the trail. Why don't people care about peaks of mountains down here?!? Almost without fail the trail will go almost entirely up a mountain and then 30-60 feet of elevation from the summit just kind of skirt around the top and start going down. While I haven't done a ton of the AT in Maine I have done a decent amount and it doesn't seem that way there. Also, there is never a sign where there are peaks. In Maine basically every peak has a sign either the name and the elevation. Not so down here, even blood mountain (the highest point the AT hits in Georgia) didn't have a sign at the peak. I just don't get it. It might be because there aren't great views on a lot of the peaks but still, Reddington in Maine was labeled and that mountain sucks.

Really lastly, if you want to see incredibly happy people dish out some trail magic. Leave some baked goods at AT crossings when the time of year coincides with thru-hikers, it is such a morale boost you wouldn't believe it.