I looked forward to a couple days of not hiking. My original plan was to hike 10 miles yesterday, then finish up the last 6 today. I had a room reserved in Bryson City for the 25th and 26th, but since I got there early I got a room at the NOC. It was awesome to sleep in a level bed inside a building. Things shut down early at the NOC. I had to cook a dehydrated meal from my food bag for supper the night before because everything was closed down by the time I arrived.

A group of hikers I knew had decided to go whitewater rafting that morning at 10:00 so I decided to join them.

Unfortunately the hydroelectric turbine on the river was down that morning so we were unable to go. I hitched a ride to Bryson City with a nice guy that brought me right to my room. I walked 2 miles round trip to the grocery store to resupply my food, washed my clothes, then mostly just relaxed. I tried not to walk any more than I had to.

I started off the day planning to do about an 11 mile hike to Wesley Bald Shelter. I then planned to hike into The NOC the next morning, where I rented a room to take a zero on Tuesday the 26th.

I quickly got into the rhythm of the hike that morning. My feet were feeling better, my legs felt fresher than they had in several days. I was able to finally push the pain of hiking into the background for a while and think about other things. I relished the opportunity, it’s a big part of why I’m even here.

I have been experiencing some nerve pain in my right thigh. It was a pain that had only recently surfaced, not constant but intermittently, it is an old familiar pain, a pain I haven’t felt since immediately after my second brain surgery. I asked the surgeon about it at the time, his explanation was that he probably touched some spot on my brain while he was operating that caused it. He told me it would probably go away, but if it didn’t not to worry about it, he said I was lucky that was all I had. So I didn’t, and it stayed for a year or more. It slowly faded away back then, I had actually completely forgotten about it with the passing of all those years. For what ever reason, this weird nerve pain was reawakened by the constant strain of hiking. It brought memories from that experience flooding back to me, it reminded me of my beloved mother. How because she was there, I knew it was going to be alright, because she was there, I wasn’t going to die. She put her whole life on hold, for a wayward son who had been mostly absent for the past several years. She never left my bedside through that whole ordeal, she took me home and nursed me back to health during the months after it was over. I never had a choice in the matter, it’s what she said we were doing, so that’s exactly what we did. I thought of the strength of my father, how he selflessly laid everything on the line to make sure I had the best of care. I thought about how that experience had shaped a big portion of my life, as I chose a career in healthcare as a result. The miles passed by as I walked and thought.

Mostly I thoughts returned to my mother. I thought about the overwhelming loss for me her passing was. It occurred to me that after all these years, I never properly grieved that loss. Instead I sought escape, I engaged in a lot of destructive behaviors to try to escape the pain back then. I just pushed through it, I never found peace with it. I know it has affected a lot of other relationships in my life, and the ways that I dealt with them. I’m sorry for that.

I just kept walking. The miles kept passing. I truly wept for most of the way. A great thing about the trail is that all of us out here are a little “different” in our own particular ways, so nobody really seemed to notice. It started getting later in the evening, I knew I had passed a coupe shelters, I knew I had gone a pretty good distance. I watched for the white blazes that mark the trail. When I saw one I would mumble to myself, “well, at least I know I’m still going the right way anyhow.”

Eventually, I came upon two obviously local mountain people sitting by the trail near a spring, which they referred to as a “branch”. I stopped and filled my empty water bottle. They told me they had hiked 30 miles in the past three days, and were ending their hike at the NOC today. “How far are we from the NOC,” I asked? “About 1.9 miles,” one of them said. I couldn’t believe I had already covered more than fourteen miles, it’s one thing to walk fourteen miles, it’s another to walk that far carrying a forty pound pack. They offered me a couple shots of moonshine, we chased it with cold spring water from the branch. I felt the warmth of the shine filter through my belly into my legs. I stood up and put on my pack and finished the sixteen and a half miles descending into the NOC. I’m definitely not recommending that as a hiking strategy, but on that day it worked for me. As I headed down the trail, I noticed one of them had a 12 inch cast iron skillet tied to the outside of his pack. I couldn’t believe he had carried it for 30 miles. The people who live in these mountains are sturdy folks.

I found a room at the NOC and took a shower. I fell into bed and had the best sleep I’ve had since I started the trail. There’s something to be said for sleeping in a level bed that’s not in the woods

I wasn’t done with the things I pondered that day, but I felt like I made a damn good start.

I was excited to try out my new shoes. They were designed for thru hikers and had a lot more padding than the Lone Peak 6. I hoped they would be better.

The hike was nice that day, the difference in the shoes was immediately apparent. There were climbs and descents, but most of them were not severe. I finished the 11 miles without a lot of difficulty, I hiked alone nearly all day, occasionally passing other hikers going both northbound and southbound. Most spoke, we always wish each other a good hike. The people on the trail are almost all very considerate and kind. It’s pleasant to be surrounded by such friendly caring people.

We all woke up early and headed to Winding Stair Gap. We were trying to catch a shuttle that ran daily from the Gap to Franklin North Carolina. The hike was not especially difficult. We arrived at the Gap before lunch and waited for the shuttle. We planned to stay in Franklin over night and return to Winding Stair to resume the hike the next morning.

There is a well known AT Hiker Outfitter in Franklin. The guys working there are known for giving good advice to thru hikers. I needed new shoes, my feet were increasingly sore and bruised. Several of my toenails were bleeding by then. I knew I had to do something different before I developed serious foot problems.

I bought some new shoes, washed my clothes, and resupplied my food for the next three days. That evening we went to the Lazy Hiker Brewery and listened to some live music. I looked forward to sleeping on a level bed.

It rained again in the early morning hours, stopping a little after 6:00. You learn how to keep things from getting quiet as dirty as before, each time you have to deal with packing up your wet gear. It’s hard to take those first few steps out of your tent, but once you get started it gets better.

I left early again on my own. Deets hiked with another guy they call Women’s Wear yesterday, and it sounded like they planned to continue together today. I looked forward to the solitude. It was a shorter day than the last two, I needed the rest, I could tell I needed to take a day off from hiking soon. My legs were weary, the night was not enough to restore them. I was tired an hour into the hike.

It’s funny the mental games you play to keep moving forward. On the uphills I tried not to look ahead more than about ten feet up the trail. I just concentrated on moving forward that ten feet, picking another spot ten feet further, and so an and so on till the end of the day. When the climbing was especially tough I focused on the next three feet in front of me, constantly looking ahead, just three feet, for hours at a time.

I reached the one hundred mile mark when I arrived at the Albert Mountain fire tower. It was a milestone on the trail to reach the one hundred mile mark. All I have to do is walk a hundred miles twenty-one more times and I’ll be done. I climbed the tower and looked at the raw beauty of the mountains. It was hazy, and there was a slight smell of woodsmoke wafting in the air.

Eventually I reached Long Branch Shelter. I had gotten in the habit of setting up my tent and sleeping system immediately upon arrival to the campsite. You tend to get flatter tent sites if you pick one early. Sleeping on a slanted surface is uncomfortable. You tend to slowly slide on your sleeping pad toward the lowest point in your tent as you sleep. I’ve awakened to find myself in a ball in some corner of my tent or other many times already. It can make for a long night and rob you of much needed sleep.

It started raining about 5:00 AM that morning and rained for about an hour. It wasn’t a hard rain, just enough to get everything good and wet.

Everyone camped around the shelter was slow to get moving,but the weather was supposed to improve as the day progressed. We packed up our wet gear, trying to keep everything as clean as possible. Wet tents made our sodden packs heavy.

The first few hours of the hike were very foggy. The air was heavy and water dripped from the leaves on the trees. There were no views, and picking your way down the muddy slick trail took all of your concentration.

By lunchtime the sky had cleared and the trail was drying up. We were doing twelve and a half miles, our longest hike so far. I left camp a lot earlier than Deets, I wanted to hike alone. It was nice to hike by myself. I looked forward to the time when the physicality of hiking didn’t dominate my thoughts anymore. For now it was hard to think about anything else. I have a lot of aches and pains, but I’m fortunate that I don’t have any real injuries up to this point. A lot of hikers do. Knee problems and ankle problems seem to be the most common. Others suffer with bad blisters. My feet were definitely tender, bruised and rock sore, but so far the only blister I had was on my right hand from my trekking pole.

The hike went well, it was a good stretch of trail to choose for the first twelve miler. I was happy with the progress, even though this was the longest hike so far, it definitely was not the hardest.

We found a ride back to Dicks Creek Shelter so we could start our hike. Our food bags were heavy with our four day resupply. We were pushing for nearly twelve miles that day. It would be our longest hike to date.

The climb out of Dick’s Creek was really steep, the ascent seemed to last forever, the hiking was tough. At 78 miles we reached the Georgia/North Carolina state line. It was exciting to leave Georgia in the rear view mirror. Only 13 states left to go.

The hike was challenging, but we were able to get to Muskrat Shelter well before dark. The weather was nice, and it was a beautiful day.

There was another trail character about. Everyone called him the Prince of Poland. His story was that his Grandfather was the king of Poland, and he, was supposed to have been his grandfather’s successor. The Prince claimed that Polish Assassins were following him on the trail, trying to poison him with scorpion venom. He went on to say that he was dosing himself with Scorpion venom to build up his immunity. Although it was obvious he was likely a schizophrenic, he seemed pretty harmless. He claimed he had been living on the trail for a year and a half. Some other hikers told us they had seen him at another shelter. They said if you could get him focused on it he was absolutely great at gathering firewood. Eventually he left the campsite and headed back south toward Plumorchard Gap Shelter, we did not see him again that night.

We took Monday off to wash clothes, resupply our food and mostly just rest. The local people in Hiawassee were kind, many were interested in knowing where we were from and why we were hiking the AT in the first place.

It rained most of the day, it was good to take a break and rest our legs. One thing about it though, when you go to town you end up walking for miles to get to the grocery store and anywhere else in town you need to go.

We were ready to get back on the trail the next morning.

It rained again right before daylight, everything is a wet muddy mess. Keeping your gear and yourself clean is impossible. The funny thing about it is that the longer you are out here, the less keeping clean really seems to matter. I have a new appreciation for how it must feel to be homeless. I always wondered how homeless people could stand to be so dirty all the time. Now I understand that once you get used to it, it doesn’t really bother you to be dirty very much. It only makes you self conscious when you hitch a ride, or walk into town. In the woods, it totally doesn’t matter.

By the time we packed up we were good and filthy. We didn’t care because we only had a short hike to Dick’s Creek Gap then we would hitch a ride to Hiawassee, resupply, eat some real food, and most importantly take a zero on the 18th.

We hiked down into Dick’s Creek well before noon. As we came out on the trailhead, a husband and wife who had camped at Deep Creek with us the night before called out to us and asked us if we needed a ride somewhere.

We told them we were headed to Hiawassee and they said they would be happy to give us a ride to our motel. You see Deets, all that worrying about how we were going to get a ride into town on Easter Sunday was for nothing.

The hike from Blue Mountain to Tray Mountain was uneventful. The mountains were socked in with fog, you could hardly see more than 25 or 30 yards in any direction. We looked forward to reaching camp and cooking a hot meal.

The AT has it’s on lingo used by people on and familiar with the trail. Some may already know this stuff. but I’m sure there are also those that do not. Here is a non-inclusive list:

NoBo: A hiker who hikes from Georgia to Maine (North Bound)

SoBo: A hiker who hikes south from Maine to Georgia (South Bound)

Flip Flopper: A thru hike of the entire trail but in a non-contiguous manner. An example would be starting in the middle and hiking first to Maine then returning to that spot to hike south to Georgia.

Section Hikers: People who hike the AT in sections over a longer period of time than a thru hike.

Zero or Zero Day: Taking a day off from hiking for whatever reason (zero miles hiked)

Nero: A day where very few miles are hiked compared to a normal hiking day

Traimaly: A group of hikers who hike together and look out for each other. A trail family

Base weight: the weight of your pack including consumables such as food and water.

Blaze: the 2X6 inch white strips of paint on trees and rocks that marks the AT.

Blue Blaze: Blue blazes indicate a trail to a water source, view, privy, or other point of interest.

Bounce Box: Box of supplies you ship or ”bounce” forward to pick up in a trail town further along the way.

Camel Up: The practice of drinking as much as possible at a water source to prevent having to carry as much water.

Townie: Day hikers, also referred to as “bathers” or people from town. Once you have been on the trail a couple of days you can smell Day Hikers before you can see them. They smell like soap, their clothing smells like laundry soap, and the women smell like perfume. Day hikers smell awesome.

Trail Magic: Goodies, Snacks, or any other type of assistance given to hikers purely out of goodwill. People who do trail magic are called Trail Angels.

Cowboy Camping: Camping underneath the stars without a tent.

Well, there are more but that’s a pretty good start. I wasn’t able to take any interesting pictures on this day due to the weather.