Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Appalachian Trail

Last Monday, Daniel and I started our "vacation" together. I put that word in quotations because, although we had a lot of fun, it was a lot of work! We spent 5 days backpacking in the Smokies. We were supposed to stay along the AT the whole time, but Daniel hurt his knee Wednesday and we thought it would be easier on him to take an alternate route on Thursday. We started at Clingman's Dome and ended at Fontana Dam. It was 32 miles overall. We hiked the AT until we got to the Eagle Creek Trail. On Thursday we hiked all the way down the Eagle Creek Trail to Fontana Lake. Friday, we took the Lakeshore Trail (which, despite its name, does not offer views of the lake) around the lake to the dam.
This is me on the AT near the beginning of our journey in the higher elevations. There were some beautiful views from the ridge up there.

Daniel is holding a MRE (meal ready-to-eat). These are what we ate for lunch and dinner everyday. Soldiers eat these when they are in the field. They are actually pretty tasty. We wouldn't have chosen to take them because they are kind of heavy for backpacking purposes, but they were free and saved us from spending a lot of money on dehydrated meals.

This is me on the top of Rocky Top on Wednesday. And, yes, we did sing Rocky Top while we were there. Go Vols!
This is what a shelter on the AT looks like. Nothing fancy but they keep you out of the wind and rain (Fortunately, we did not have any rain the whole trip. The weather was quite perfect.). We stayed in these the first 3 nights.


Inside the shelter.

Every shelter had bear cables where you could hang your bags away from the shelters and out of reach of the bears. We saw one bear on the trail on the second day. Fortunately, he ran the other direction as soon as he heard us. That's my kind of bear. We also saw deer, wild turkeys, a red squirrel, lots of cute chipmunks, millipedes and various other insects, butterflies, and a few birds.

This is me on the fourth day in Eagle Creek. The decision to take this trail instead of continuing on the AT turned out to be a good decision - Daniel's knee didn't bother him at all on this trail. When the trail was actually on land, it was quite easy - gradual downhill for the first 4 miles and pretty flat for the last 4 miles. The only catch was you had to cross the creek 21 times. It had been raining a lot the week before, so there was a lot of water and some fast currents. Some of the crossings were a little scary for me. Only the last crossing had a bridge.

At our campsite on the fourth night trying to dry out our stuff that got wet during the creek crossings.

Overall, we had a wonderful time and hope to take more extended hiking trips in the future. It's nice to really get away from it all sometimes. It was really peaceful and quiet. There were no cell phones, no cars, and very few people. The people we did meet were very friendly and I enjoyed talking to them over the campfires at night. I also have a greater respect for the people who spend 4 - 5 months hiking the whole trail. That is quite an accomplishment. I hope to hike the whole trail, but in bits and pieces over the years. The hard work is worth the beauty and peace you can find on the trail.

6 comments:

Lindsey Rose said...

Erin that is soo awesome! You guys are quite the adveturers! I would have been scared, YIKES! But what a memory, and to say you have been on the AT, that is so cool! I miss you, when are we going to get together? I am free all the time!

nbarnes2 said...

so it all sounded fabulous. in fact ou had me really wanting to go until the bear. i know he just ran away but....ooh....it still gave me the heebie jeebies. but seriously it sounds awesome!

Amber said...

Have you ever read "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson? It's somewhat crude in parts, but overall pretty entertaining. It's one guys tale of his AT trek. I don't know that I would have attempted it after reading the book, but your post makes me reconsider. So pretty!

Unknown said...

Oh Erin...I am so jealous..I totally want to do this...don't know if LG would want to, but I am going to put it on my bucket list.

How much fun! I am surprised you didn't go all out and take Finn too....you guys are awesome.

Marla said...

Totally amazed. I would never make it, lol!

Celeste said...

The pictures you took were beautiful! I love how green the Smokies are, and that is somewhere Ben and I need to go hiking sometime. It looks like you guys had a lot of fun! (I saw another comment about the bear, and that would have freaked me out as well! Good thing he ran the other way...)

~Celeste