Check out this Tedx Talk by Christopher Barnes, the cohead of the High Mountain Institute! HMI is the semester school that I attended my junior spring semester of high school and consequently is what sparked my love of backpacking and inspired me to do the trail.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yBFworyeeWk

Take a risk, do something that scares you!
 
Trail Magic: (n) Random acts of kindness performed for thru hikers on the AT.
Example: Snacks left for hikers at a shelter.
Since I've been out here I've received a bunch of trail magic including finding snickers at a shelter, stumbling upon a bin of snacks on trail, receiving a few hitches and being given a headlamp by a weekend hiker when my headlamp broke. But by far the best trail magic I have been lucky enough to receive occurred a few days ago when I stayed at Mountain Harbor Hostel. It was a cute little hostel built from a converted barn, and on top of the cost of staying there, there was an option to pay for a $10 home cooked breakfast. $10 is a little steep for a thru hiker, so my friends and I decided to opt out. Mary, the woman that runs the hostel generously decided to invite us over for breakfast. We expected, you know, a nice but simple home cooked breakfast with maybe pancakes, eggs and bacon or something of the sort. What we got, was the best breakfast of our entire lives. I'm talking, 10 course, gourmet breakfast. There was French toast with real maple syrup, hash browns Cooked with eggs, bagels with cream cheese and salmon, fruit salad, pastries with cream and strawberries, cinnamon and glazed pound cake, and biscuits with gravy. Third and fourth helpings happened. Needless to say, we ended up taking a zero that day instead of braving the freezing rain. Thank you, Mary!



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A few of the courses.
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Not enough room on my plate
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The hostel-converted-barn
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Hostel life
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Grandpa Skeetbutter enjoying a nice foot soak and book
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The loft
 
Made it out of NC and TN in the past few days! Now in the sweet land of ol' Hawaii, I mean Virginia! With all the crappy weather we've been having, we have all been daydreaming about Virginia as a magical land of flatness and warmth. I guess we'll have to see if it lives up to our expectations!! The cool thing about Virginia though is that it makes up about 1/4 of the trail, so when we finally make it out, I will be 1000 miles in and 1/2 way done! Yahoo!
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Hallelujah!
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Aloha, Hawaii!
While in NC on a really cold and snowy day:
Al: "So Hawaii is on the AT right? It goes NC, TN, HI, VA?"
 
Sunnie Falls: "This isn't so bad!"
Al: "Yeah this is great hiking weather!"
Daypack: "Way better than yesterday!"
Skeetbutter: ". . .Guys it's in the twenties and snowing. . ."
#40daysofwintercamping
 
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You get excited when food has a lot of calories. Little Debbie Chocolate Frosted Cinnamon Rolls: Light, 50 cents and 400 calories. "Everything in moderation, including moderation." - Summer
 
Made it to Clingman's Dome the other day! Highest elevation on the AT at 6655 feet! We had terrible weather in the Smokys so I had the views all to myself! Killing it!
 
Oh my goodness! I am through the Smokys and am oh so glad! Though it was quite the adventure!

My friend Daypack and I entered the park around 1:30 one afternoon, eager to hike in the most visited national park in the US! When we started hiking it was snowing with just a few inches on the ground - no biggie, we thought, we've seen snow before. Having gotten a late start though we only made it to a campground. The problem was, my tent had broke the night before. With no other options, daypack and I had to squeeze into his one person tent. Well, it will definitely be warmer that way we figured!
When we woke up in the morning though, we were oh so pleasantly surprised to find that the sky had so kindly dumped 2 feet of snow on us. Peachy. That day it took us five hours to hike five miles to the first shelter. In single digit temperatures. With trail runners and no gaiters. So much for LNT principle número uno: Plan ahead and prepare! Surveying our options we decided to hike out eight miles the next day to a side trail so his dad coul come pick us up and rescue us (he's from TN).
We ended up staying the next four days at Daypacks house as we waited out two more winter storms hitting the smokys. Have no fear though, we utilized our time to our best possible advantage by eating, sleeping, eating, watching the entire first seasons of Walking Dead (don't know how daypack convinced me to do that), How I Met Your Mother (hilarious) and two of the Lord of the Rings movies, and eating some more.
After so many days off though I was ready to brave the Smokys again. I hiked back in and met up with a young group of hikers that included Firefeet, Summer, Skeetbutter, and Dr. Jones. While there was still two feet snow on the ground, it had warmed up to the forties and fifties, and the majority of the rest of our hike went swimmingly!
But we didn't get off so easily. Nope, Mother Nature decided to get one last laugh, and our second to last day we spent 13 miles on an exposed 5000 foot ridge line in a cloud with 30-40 miles winds and gusts of wind up to 60. There were tree blowdowns everywhere and I quite literally thought that might be the end. Well, it had been nice knowing all of ya!
Thankfully we did make it to the shelter with no casualties(!) and not a moment too soon! Not 30 minutes after we got to the shelter and it started down pouring. (and I thought it couldn't get any worse)
The next day we had about 15 more miles until we were out of the smokies and we booked it! Though as one last final hurrah, we got to hike on the trail-turned-river! Kinda makes you miss the snow, huh? Orrrr maybe not.
The next day we practically collapsed on the doormat of the Standing Bear Hostel, happy to have a day to relax, dry out, warm up, and eat lots of food!
 
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Took a wrong turn trying to get into the smokies, ended up in Narnia!
 
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You hang out in bathrooms because they are heated.
 
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Lovin' it!