Day 79 - Saturday, May 29, 2021

 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 months to complete their thru-hike... Happy Trails!



The Mountain Laurel blossoms are dropping.


The trail in today’s section was very restricted and narrow due to the dense undergrowth and grasses making hiking more demanding - a little trail maintenance would be welcomed 🥴.


Monument marking where a NC Forest Ranger loss his life fighting a fire December 7, 1968 (Pearl Harbor Day).


Mountain spring.



We encountered a lot of rock today making hiking slow and difficult... “Rocks & roots, they tear you up” (Meredith “Sunny” Eberhart )



Taking a break; the 1st 8 miles was a long ascent where we climbed over 3200 ft. 









Views from the summit of Cheoah Bald.










We finished hiking at 4:30 pm with cloudy skies; temperatures dropped this afternoon into the low 50’s. The next couple days will be cooler as well 👍🏻.

We hit another milestone today, breaking 900 trail miles, 905.1 miles to be exact 🥳. Closing in on the halfway point. We are starting to pick up our daily average miles too which helps chip away at total trail days. Just 2 more miles a day would  decrease our hikes by nearly 20 over the course of the remaining miles.  Staying optimistic and looking forward to the adventures ahead of us 😉!


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 173 - Friday, October 8, 2021

Image
I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’m counting, but today is the 3rd of our final 4 hikes to complete our thru hike. Okay I’m counting, why not 😉?  And it looks like the weather will also be on our side whereas we will have moderate temperatures in the low 70’s and clear skies. I think I’ll get a little daring and do a final “shakedown” and drop my rain gear from my pack 🤭. Our 2nd from the last hike will be from the the I-70 Footbridge, US 40 (1048.2 NoBo) to Gapland Road, Gathland State Park (1036.0 NoBo) equaling 12.2 miles. We are setting 2 hiking milestones today: going below 10 miles left to hike and 1 hike remaining to complete our thru hike. We began hiking at 9:45 am; a little later than normal but we took the opportunity to get some additional sleep. Gathland State Park. View from White Rock Cliff. The trail was generally much easier to negotiate today; more typical soil base with few rocks and roots but you are still on full time alert placing each s...
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

Day 174 - Saturday, October 9, 2021

Image
Here we are… who would have ever thought this day would get here 5-6 months ago? Today is the 4th day of our final 4 hikes or in simpler terms - today is our last and final hike completing our “Platinum” Slack Packing Flip-Flop-Flip Thru Hike. We will have put our boots to the trail on all 2193.1 miles of the white blazes of the Appalachian Trail. I’m not sure if I’m excited or disappointed that it’s almost over.   Going through my final routine of  taping; felt like I was a Gladiator preparing to enter the Coliseum.   I am feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment knowing that only 20% of those w ho begin a thru hike actually complete it. So I’ll just go with that and finish this adventure. Today we are completing the final leg of the journey, hiking from Gapland Road, Gathland State Park (1036.0 NoBo) to Harpers Ferry , Potomac River, Bryon Memorial Footbridge, WV-MD border (1026.3 NoBo) totaling 9.7 miles, the final steps of our 5,000,000 steps. And there’s a 51...
Read more