Day twenty five

Thursday March 23, 2017

It was a chilly night but my water bottles didn’t freeze so it couldn’t have been that cold. I was slow getting out of my tent this morning and I felt slow for the first couple of miles. I think this was mostly from not eating enough yesterday. And it didn’t help that, as usual, the first couple of miles was up hill.

It was a beautiful, if chilly morning. This was the first morning in the last few that I had to wear gloves. The sun and I both racing for the ridge above. I must admit that the sun won today. It was over the ridge long before I was. But when the sun did crest that ridge it turned the forest floor below to gold. And when I looked up the trail and even higher, the bare winter trees were silver and gray against a cobalt blue sky. There was not a cloud in the sky. It was a fine morning to be in the woods.

Today would be a fairly short day. It was only about six miles down to Fontana Dam. And after the initial climb, the rest of the day would be mostly down hill. At the bottom of the hill is NC 28 where I will get a shuttle into Fontana Village. In the Village I will resupply, eat, rest, and spend the night in preparation for entering the Great Smoky Mountains tomorrow. 

I am now in the Village. I’ve eaten, twice, showered, done my laundry, and resupplied. Tomorrow will be a big day. It is 12.5 miles from NC 28 to the first shelter, almost all of that uphill. Tomorrow’s hike will begin by crossing the Fontana Dam, then up into the Smokies, the highest mountains on the entire A.T.

The adventure continues.

164.4 miles down       2025.4 miles to go