Day 76 - Wednesday, May 26, 2021

We ended up staying  at the Best Western in Maggie Valley, NC... finally a room that everything works and it turned out to be cheaper than the hotel we stayed in yesterday 😉.

We are changing our hiking schedule a little and postponing hiking the Great Smoky Mountains until after I return from Florida. Jean and I are closing on the condo tentatively next week...  why is buying cars and homes/condos so painful? I rather have a cavity filled without  novocaine then go thru these processes 😡😬🤮. We changed our hiking schedule as the lender could not give an exact closing date until next week and hiking through the Smoky’s will take 5 days; cutting it too close. So we are going to go to Fontana Damn, the southern end of the Smoky’s  and continue our typical “Platinum” Slack Pack Flip-Flop-Flip thru hike until I have to go to Florida 🤪. 

And we are finally taking a “Zero” after 29 consecutive hikes 🥳 (you just can’t make this stuff up...). Well I could, it’s my blog 😂.

But today we are hiking from Brown Gap, USFS 148a (251.6 NoBo) to  Davenport Gap Shelter (238.0 NoBo) for a total of 13.6 miles. 







The Mountain Laurel is out in full bloom highlighting the trails edges.








This is “Hot Shot”. He’s section hiking with his dad “Eagle” and a couple buddies. He served in Afghanistan... thank you for your service 🇺🇸 and enjoy your hike... Happy Trails!





Climbing the summit of Snowbird Mountain. Not the typical blaze going up the hill - the AT logo. 





Views from Snowbird Mountain - they are breathtaking!




We were soaking wet from sweating... this is where we sat for lunch 🥵.


This is the Groundhog Creek Shelter. We replenished water here.



We finished hiking at 5:25 pm under partly sunny skies. The high for the day got to 80°.


Till next time.... Happy Hiking  🥾 

😋


“You gotta have passion for life and passion for something that you're going to get up and do,".    

                                Meredith “Sunny” Eberhart  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 163 - Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Image
Looks like we may get wet the next couple days but short of a hurricane we will be hiking to stay on track for an October 8th completion of our thru hike 🙏🏻.  Today was not quite a “Nero” but it was a coincidence that it was shorter aligning with our slack packing parking 😉. We hiked  from  PA 645 (1194.0 NoBo) to Pass Under PA 72 & Across PA 443 (1183.2 NoBo) for a total of 10.8 miles. We began hiking at 9:00 am under threatening skies. Pre-gaming thanks to some Trail Magic left in the parking lot. Since before I have been on the trail I can’t recall the last time I drank a real Coke or any soda for that matter; it’s nearly the norm now as you want to consume all the carbs you can 🤭. And it was too early for the PBR 😂. Crossing the old canal at Swatara Gap. Going underneath I-81. The trail wasn’t as rocky today… and I’m not complaining 🥵. Turtle Power is doing his part to save the environment as he has a new aversion of killing every Spotted Laternfly  he ...
Read more

Day 95 - Friday, June 25, 2021

Image
There are definitely pros and cons when you compare sleeping in a shelter vs sleeping in your tent. Some pros are:  you will stay drier in inclement weather in a shelter (notice I didn’t say “dry”,  just drier or not as wet 🙄) , you can break camp quicker in the am - not packing up a tent, you have more room (if shelter isn’t crowded) and a biggie is -  you can take a chance and hope to always use the shelters and not pack a tent optimizing base pack weight (this could also be the #1 con if you had to sleep outside in the rain w/o a tent 🤭) just to name a few.  Some cons are: sleeping on a hard floor - which I believe is the #1 con against shelters (getting a good nights sleep is key to rest and rejuvenate your weary body), could be noisy, the little varmints 🐁 sneaking around in the middle of the night,  some hikers don’t have a clue about maintaining their “personal” space or they just don’t care, on occasion you have to deal with some “personalities” (I ju...
Read more

The Final Chapter

Image
My favorite scene on the Appalachian Trail near Petites Gap/Highcock Knob, VA, March 26, 2021 (Day 31). Reaching Springer Mountain, the Southern Terminus, June 13, 2021 (Day 90). Summiting Mt. Katahdin, the Northern Terminus, August 25, 2021 (Day 131). Completing our thru hike at Harpers Ferry on October 9, 2021 (Day 174). In the Beginning … This adventure actually started about two years ago in the fall of 2019 when Jim asked me about how I’d like to hike the Appalachian Trail with him. I gave it a good 2 seconds of consideration before I wasn’t politically correct at all in my answer telling him NO…LOL. I was just getting over an injury with my right Achilles tendon as I ruptured it a couple years prior and long distance hiking was the farthest thing on my mind to do.  Now lets back up about 57 years when Jim and I first met. His dad owned and operated a local campground, Coldbrook Campsites in Port Leyden, New York. Port Leyden was also the home of my father and he knew Jim’s da...
Read more