Day 35

Day 35 -April 11 2017- 10.7 miles plus 1.2 miles of side trail. Cosby Knob to Standing Bear Hostel I woke before the sun came up. The predawn light caused my rain tarp to glow warmly. I felt urged to get out of my hammock to experience the glory of the sun breaching over the […]

Day 34

Day 34 -April 10 2017- 12.5 miles – Pecks Corner to Cosby Knob All was quiet on the trail. It had been that way since we left Newfound Gap the day before. The sun was shining, there was only the gentlest of breezes, and there was almost no one on the trail. Not long after […]

Day 32

(Somehow, when I posted this originally, only half this blog post was posted. Here it is in its entirety. ) Day 32 -April 8 2017- 0 miles – Gatlinburg Getting to sleep the night before had proven to be harder than expected. One of the parking lot lights shown right into the room. Above the […]

Day 33

Day 33 -April 9 2017- 12.4 miles (including side trails) – Newfound Gap to Pecks Corner The weather forecast was good so I planned the next section to account for some side trails that looked interesting. On the ride back to the trail the same time lapse effect happened, but this time in reverse. It […]

Day 31

Day 31 -April 7 2017- 4.3 miles – Mt Collins Shelter to Newfound Gap ” It was cold last night + very windy. My body kept did not like sleeping on a wood floor. Even with my air mattress, I kept doing a rotisserie of discomfort. Temps in the 20s or less. Glad we were […]

Day 30

Day 30 -April 6 2017-13.5 miles – Derrick Knob Shelter to Mt Collins Shelter I woke to the sound of snow flakes sliding off my rain tarp. It sounded like someone lightly gliding their fingers over a piece of paper. It was soothing in a way. It was soothing, but it also meant it was […]

Day 29

Day 29 -April 5 2017-12 miles – Mollie Shelter to Derrick Knob Shelter The day started off overcast and decided to stay that way all day. The wind kicked up and we could see large curtains of rain off in every direction. We knew it was only a matter of time until we would get […]

Day 28

Day 28 -April 4 2017- 13.6 miles – Fontana Marina to Mollie Shelter We stayed in bed an hour later than we planned. A warm bed can be a hard thing to leave. The weather had changed and we were greeted with blue skies and temps in the 60’s. Perfect for hiking. Not long into […]

Day 27

Day 27 -April 3 2017- 5.3 miles – Cable Gap to Fontana Lodge It was raining in the morning and all the weather reports said it was going to get worse. We decided to try to book a room at the Fontana Lodge. We were going to stop there anyway to pick up a resupply […]

Day 26

Day 26 -April 2 2017- 11.5 miles – Locust grove – Cable Gap We didn’t feel like we were at 100 percent in the morning. I guess we were still recovering from our illness. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The trees were budding and there were birds chirping. Only 10 days earlier the […]