Day 91 - Monday, June 14, 2021

We left Amicalola yesterday afternoon and then spent the remainder of the day driving north to stage our thru-hike through the Great Smoky Mountains. The first leg will be a two day hike/ one overnight starting from Davenport Gap, TN 32, NC 284 (239.1 NoBo) to Newfound Gap, US 441 (207.7 NoBo) equaling 31.4 miles.  We dropped off my car at Newfound Gap and will then headed to the hotel in Newport, NC to finish packing our packs and get a good nights sleep. 

This morning we dropped off Turtle Power’s vehicle at the Standing Bear Hostel/shuttle service as we were told by the USFS Rangers that a high rate of vandism has occurred to hikers leaving their vehicles at Davenport Gap…. Hmm, you would think the Rangers might patrol that parking area more 🤔?  

We met Mike from Standing Bear Hostel where Turtle Power safely parked his vehicle and he drove us to the trailhead at Davenport Gap. Today we are hiking from Davenport Gap (239.1 NoBo) to the Tri-Corner Knob Shelter (223.4 NoBo) for a total of 15.7 miles. The shelter at Cosby Knob was closed due to aggressive bear activity. This shelter is closed most of the time. 

We began hiking at 8:45 am. The temperature was already 68° and it was very humid. 






We started right off with a 5 mile climb 🥵.



We ran into “Ketchup” as she likes ketchup on her fries and she’s trying to “catch up” as she left Springer on June 1st - which is typically very late to do a NoBo thru-hike. She left so late as she just graduated college from UV@Roanoke. She is doing surprisingly well so far,  averaging over 17 miles/day but she will have to keep this aggressive pace up to make it before adverse weather hits New Hampshire & Maine. Good Luck “Ketchup”!


We encountered a lot of fog as we were in the clouds making our ascent. Much of the Smokys are over 6000 feet. 











It finally did clear as we then were able to see some amazing views… spectacular!





This one section of pines was covered with moss. 

We reached the Tri-Corner Knob Shelter at 5:30 pm soaking wet with sweat and condensation from the fog - half way through stage 1 thru-hike.  There were already several hikers there. 


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  







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