The Way I Go Along The Appalachian Trail

🇺🇸   Happy Memorial Day  🇺🇸  We are wrapping up another session of hiking as we have been hitting the trail hard since May 5th with only one “Zero”. We are going off trail for a few days so that we can take care of some personal business (Jean & I are closing on our Condo). We’ve gone over 900 trail miles and we are knocking on Springer’s door. Turtle Power and I have checked and fine tuned our schedule and we will accomplish reaching the southern terminus on June 13th! Today we are continuing hiking from        Burningtown Gap, NC 01397 (124.0 NoBo) to Wayah Crest Picnic Area (115.2 NoBo)  equaling 8.8 miles. Not quite a “Nero” but I have to catch my flight in Atlanta 2+ hours away so I have to be off the trail by 3ish. We started hiking at at 9:30  am. There has been a lot of day hikers and section hikers on the trail this weekend. We don’t expect to see anymore NoBo thru-hikers as it’s getting late in the year for them to be this f...

   Happy Memorial Day Weekend America 🇺🇸 . We stayed at the Quality Inn in Andrews, NC for two nights as it is centrally located for our next 3-4 hikes. We may stay here when I return from the closing. Today we are continuing hiking from  Nantahala Outdoor Center (136.9 NoBo) to Burningtown Gap, NC 01397 (124.0 NoBo) equaling 12.9 miles. We began hiking at 9:30 am, temperature was 48° 🥶. The Cold Spring Shelter. This is one of the oldest shelters on the AT; it was built in the 1930’s by the CCC*. (* CCC:  The Civilian Conservation Corps was a voluntary public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. Robert Fechner was the first director of this agency, succeeded by James McEntee following Fechner's death.) Panoramic view from Rocky Bald. Views from Rocky Bald. This section of the mountain below Rocky Bald caught on fire in 2016. It was probably due to a ...

  Happy Memorial Day Weekend America 🇺🇸 . Spent the night drying out everything that was soaked from yesterday’s hike. This would be a challenge camping on the trail. Have I mentioned that I just love our “Platinum Slack Packing Thru-Hike”? The rest of the weekend looks dry but a little cool - only in the 60’s which is great hiking weather 😉. I’ve also noticed that our water consumption increases dramatically when the temperatures get above 75°, nearly 3X 🥵. Today we are continuing hiking SoBo from  Stecoach Gap, NC 143 (150.5 NoBo) to US 19 & 74, Nantahala Outdoor Center (136.9 NoBo) equaling 13.6 miles. We started at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.  Begin hiking at 9:30 under cloudy skies and the temperature was 58°. This potion of the Nantahala River is noted for rafting and kayaking - note the kayak gates behind us in the river. This is “Poppa Mo” & “Momma Mo”. The Morelli’s are from the Atlanta area and left Springer May 1st. They are giving themselves 6 mo...

Happy Memorial Day Weekend 🇺🇸 . Thank you to all the brave  Americans who paid the ultimate price fighting for our country and giving us the freedom that we have today... they will not be forgotten! We made our way down to Robbinsville, NC to resume hiking after we decided to temporarily skip the Smoky’s. We rented an Airbnb which was a storage unit made into efficiency apartments. It is actually very nice, fairly new and was surprisingly very well furnished (it even matched the pictures on the website). This area is a big motorcycle haven as we are not to far from the “Dragon’s Tail” so all the units come with an adjacent motorcycle garage which holds 2-3 bikes.  Turtle Power cooked a delicious 🙄 spaghetti and meatball dinner then we sat around the fire pit listening to songs from the 70’s & 80’s... OMG we just turned into our parents except we weren’t telling DPJ’s*; well maybe a couple 🤭 (*DPJ’s : dirty parent jokes). Storage Unit efficiency apartments.... this pro...