Day 94 - Thursday, June 24, 2021

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 Top… they just keep getting better 😉. 


Tick check….




And this is why you check. I actually felt the little rascal crawling on my leg. This is only the 2nd time we found a tick on us; so that’s really not that bad considering how many days on the trail we have. The ticks will be much worse up north in “tick alley” (Pennsylvania-Vermont). Final score: Splinter 1 - tick 0 ☠️ .





Finally made it to the Russel Field Shelter at 6:00 pm.


Turtle Power relaxing and having a delicious dehydrated dinner 🤢.

Again, bed time is early at the shelter. All tucked inside, nice and cozy in their sleeping bags by 8:15 pm. Tomorrow we should be at Fontana Dam completing the Great Smokys  🤙🏻.


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 107A & B - Sunday/Monday, July 18-19, 2021

Image
Sunday’s “Zero” was a nice break. We took  this time to  do laundry and finish our tentative hiking itinerary that takes us through the Whites, over the President’s and into Maine. New Hampshire and Maine have their own system on the AMC website where you need reservations to stay at Huts and Lean-to’s aka shelters. But of course their on-line reservations is not working, let’s blame that on the pandemic, and they are not open on Sunday’s. We have to call tomorrow to finalize our reservations. Hopefully the Huts & Lean-to’s have vacancies for the dates we need?   Out next hike will take us over three days & two nights continuing from Franconia Notch (1820.0 NoBo) to RR Tracks, parking, Ethan Pond Pond Trail (1847.4) for a total of 27.4 miles. Due to the parking logistics we are hiking this section SoBo. This hike will also complete our approach to Mt. Washington.  We wake up today, Monday, and it’s pouring…. still, again 😵‍💫! So we decide to drive to the Ethan Pond Trail entr
Read more

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 step in a
Read more

Day 71 - Friday, May 21, 2021

Image
We ended up staying  another night  at the Mountain Inn & Suites... even Turtle Power is a great supporter of  the “Platinum” Slack Packing Package. I was shocked when he suggested that we stay another night in the hotel rather than go camping 🥱. Who am I to never not take advantage of 4 walls and a roof over my head, an actual real and comfortable bed, indoor plumbing and a hot shower; not to mention WiFi, TV and breakfast? My Momma did not raise no fool 😉.  I think we are going to camp at a hostel tonight. Spring is definitely here. Daytime temps are now forecasted to be in the 70’s & 80’s with nighttime temps not dropping below the 50’s. No rain is in sight for the next several days - but that could always change. 🙃 Today we continued  hiking from  Sam’s Gap, US 23, I-26 (319.7 NoBo) to Devils Fork Gap, NC 212 (311.0 NoBo) for a total of 8.7  miles. We began hiking at 10 am and started off with a 3 mile long climb of nearly +1400 feet change in elevation… a real heart sto
Read more