I got back from Dahlonega late the previous evening so I slept in a little this morning. One of the first things I did was weigh myself. I started out at 235 lbs. I weighed in this morning at 215 lbs. So I’ve lost 20 lbs in 3 weeks. Yikes! Though one of my goals with this hike was to lose weight, this much this fast can’t be healthy I thought. Needless to say I need to eat more. I took care of some personal business and then started planning my day. With me getting such a late

I didn’t sleep well. I don’t know, maybe sleeping on the floor in a public bathroom had someone to do with it? My feet hurt from the 20+ miles we hiked the day before...barefoot, uphill, both ways in the snow. Oh wait that’s what our parents used to tell us they did when they walked to school, right? ? Ok so I wasn’t barefoot, we did hike over 20 miles, it was uphill mostly, it was snowing, and it was the highest point on the entire AT. I tossed and turned all night. It didn’t help CoCo was

I awoke to temps in 20s again. My first night sleeping in a shelter was ok. There must have been 20 of us in the shelter. We were crammed in like sardines in a can. I stayed fairly warm in my sleeping bag surrounded by other hikers on both sides of me and more on the platform above me. We all emerged from our cocoons and pushed our way through the tarp door that protected us from the cold wind the night before. There were some deer at our campsite that morning so I snapped some photos. I

I awoke to mid 20 temperatures. Needless to say I didn’t want to get out of my warm sleeping bag again. One thing I can say for sure about the Smokies is it was cold. I would imagine it’s not this cold year round, but with the higher elevations, I’m sure it stays pretty cold most of the time. I finally got up, ate, packed up, and hit the trail. I noticed the higher I climbed the more icy the trail got. I reconnected with Fargo. He told me he met some thru hikers that rented a cabin

I ate a quick breakfast and caught a ride back to where I left off the night before...Stecoah Gap. The game plan was to get to Fontana Dam. As I’m sure with all gaps, you have to climb uphill, no matter the direction you’re headed. Hence why it’s called a “gap”. A gap between two mountains. So yet again my day started climbing uphill out of a gap. As I passed one of the shelters I reconnected with Nevi and Norris from the night before. I’m not sure how Nevi got his name but Norris is short for

I started my day at the Nantahala Outdoor Center... also known as the NOC. I’m surprised I’ve never heard of this place before. It’s only about an hour north of Blairsville, which I’ve spent a lot of time over the years. Growing up north of Atlanta in the suburbs, and having a cabin in Blairsville, most of the outdoor exploration I’ve done has been between those two locations, not north up into North Carolina. This is such a beautiful area. I’ve discovered a whole new world to explore further after this trek has been completed. The Nantahala River