Okay, so here we go....
Pre-trip prep: This is all of of the stuff we needed for the two nights and two days in nature. It was a lot of stuff and it was only the BARE minimum, believe me! Tent, sleeping bag, air pad, pillow, bug spray, clothes, water, water bottle filter, food, etc. It is a long list of little stuff that adds up to be quite heavy!
Can you believe that all that stuff fits into these two backpacks? We weighed them both and mine came in at 14 lbs. and Jame's came in at 25 lbs. Not too bad!
Pumped and ready to go!
We drove a really long way to get to the ranger station where we were to begin. The road was closed that we needed to take and our detour added an extra two hours...yikes! We even crossed into North Carolina for a while. It was long, but the drive was breathtaking. We had to detour through both the Cherokee and Nanahalah National Forests and the views were spectacular, so at least there was a bright side, but we worried about making it to our campsite before dark.
James' good friend from High School, Brandon (aka Poss), and his girlfriend Rachel, went on this excursion with us. We picked them up in Nashville on the way, and boy was I glad to have a female companion along!
Day One: We hiked about 4.6 miles along this beautiful creek to our campground. It was a nice leisurely climb with great scenery.
Yay! We made it to the campsite with plenty of daylight left to get camp all set up. I was relieved to have made it that far and nervous about the next day's ascent!
Tent up complete with the rain fly just in case...and surprisingly, I slept pretty darn good that night on my sleeping bag and pad. The hike must have worn me out pretty good. And the temperature was perfect. It got down into the low 60's that night.
Dinner time. This is what we boil our water in for cooking.
And here is our gourmet meal in a bag...just add boiling water. James had chili and it was tortilla soup for me.
I gotta admit that mine was pretty tasty! Especially after such hard work.
Day Two: We hiked nearly straight uphill for three hours, gaining 2,500 ft. in altitude, up to 5,000 ft. It was a tough hike, I won't lie. Uphill for over 5 miles. I had to stop for many a breaks. We finally made it to Gregory's Bald and the tough morning climb was definitely worth it. It was beautiful at the top. The azaleas were in full bloom and there were hundreds of them.
And when we came up out of some of the bushes, this deer was right there. Just an arms length away from us. It was amazing. Not one bit afraid of people.
Oh man, and the views from the top were amazing too, but not as clear as they would have been on a sunny day. Right as we got to the top the clouds started coming in.
We were so in hopes of seeing a black bear. We saw a lot of evidence of bears (fresh bear poop), but no bears. Maybe next time...
And then the rain began. Not bad though. It rained for about an hour and never hard. It gave us an excuse to get out our rain gear.
We were supposed to only hike about 10 total miles on day two and camp out for a second night, but it was only 2.6 more miles to our car from the camp, so we decided to tough it out and make it back to the car. That made for a total of over 12 miles in one day. Whew, were our legs worn out. We stuck them in the creek back at the car to numb them up a bit!
On our drive back through the Nanahalah and Cherokee National Forests, we stopped at an overlook and took some pics of the spectacular views! 
And night two was spent at the Hampton Inn in Athens, TN. Boy were we glad to get a hot shower and sleep in a comfy bed! 
So, there you have it, folks. It was such a great experience and I'm quite proud of myself for it. The only complaint I had was my sore calves the next few days! I am even looking forward to doing it again. Who knew I was such an outdoors woman??
1 comment:
So glad you made it, Anne! You really are becoming one with the outdoors :)
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