The Way I Go Along The Appalachian Trail

We made it to the hotel in Pearisburg, Virginia about 11:30 pm then we had to drop off my car at Cross Clendenin Road, VA 641 / Pocahontas Road (641.5 NoBo) where we will come off the trail tomorrow. We are hiking this section of the AT as it was closed due to the high voltage  power line structure collapsing last February in an ice storm. We were here April 9th and the section was still closed.  Today’s hike will wrap up all the AT from Harpers Ferry/Potomac River/Byron Memorial Footbridge (1026.3 NoBo) south to Springer Mountain (0.0 NoBo) plus the 8.8 mile Approach Trail to  Amicalola. We have also completed all of New York from The NY/CT Border, Hoyt Road (1458.7 NoBo) to County Road 565, Glenwood, NJ (1355.8 NoBo) for a total of 1129.2 miles or 54.0 % of the total AT 🎉! We started hiking at 8:45 am from Stoney Creek Valley, VA 635 (657.0 NoBo) for a total of 15.5 miles.  And of course our hike began with a climb 🤭, a change in elevation of more than 1400 ft over 3.8 miles.   We

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 just imagine them getting

There’s something to be said about sleeping on a wooden platform (nothing good) even when you’re on a 3” thick air mattress 😖🥵. I slept pretty good til about 2:30 am but tossed n turned the rest of the night. Low was around 48° but I was comfortable in my 50° sleeping sack. My thermolite bag liner definitely did the trick 👍🏻. Finally got up at 6 am had breakfast, rolled up sleeping bag, bag liner and air mattress; finished packing my pack was on the trail by 8 am. There was a slight cool breeze but you warmed up quickly once you got moving … Today we continued hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains from the Silers Bald Shelter (185.5 NoBo) to the Russel Field Shelter (180.8 NoBo) totaling 14.7 miles. And of course we will have a decent climb, but not at the start, taking us up to Thunderhead Mountain and Rocky Top but then should be all down hill  from there 🙄. A little rock scramble first thing to loosen up your  joints and get the heart pumping 😖. Break time 😉. Views from Rocky T