April 1st - Day 31

Ross, Ben, and I were planning on leaving relatively early to head for Cherry Gap Shelter from the hostel we stayed at the night before in Erwin, Tennessee. Leaving towns early has proven to be a difficult task because we always leave things for the last minute and it seems like I have a thousand things to do before I go. We left at almost 11:00 which was no where near the early departure we were hoping for but we were going to do a 17.5 mile day so we knew we would at least make it by dark. We are close to Damascus, Virginia and we want to get there as soon as possible. We are doing higher mileage days to get there in about a week or so. The day went by well. I am starting to feel like I'm getting in better shape and we had great weather.

crazy to think I slept in there, Cherry Gap Shelter TN

March 30th and March 31st - Day 29 and 30

Woke up on the later side because we knew it was only going to be a 6 mile day to Uncle Johnny's where we were going to meet back up with Super Fast Nate who did a night hike with his dad, Michael, and Matt. Michael and Matt pushed through Erwin, Tennessee where they were meeting a friend to take them to church on Easter Sunday. The hike was mostly down hill and was very scenic. It took about two hours and we were at Uncle Johnny's by noon. We obviously were pumped about a pizza buffet we heard was in town but once we got our bunks we found out the shuttle didn't leave until 3:00. That was a huge problem due to our hiker hunger. But... we found out the hostel rented these sweet blue bikes for 2 dollars a day. We all grabbed a bike and rolled out to the pizza joint where we smashed like 8 or 9 pizzas between all of us. The hostel wasn't extremely accommodating. It didn't have a kitchen or tv but we still decided to take Easter Sunday off and spend the next day in Erwin, Tennessee. Doesn't sound too exciting but it was a well needed break after all the gnarly snow we had gotten the days before. And Monday we were off to hiking again.

sweet ride!

Ross is ready to hit the town

March 29th - Day 28

We woke up at Bald Mountain Shelter. The group was Ross, Tosh, G, and I. G told us that her foot was very swollen and asked if instead of doing 15.9 miles in to Erwin, Tennessee, we could do a 10 mile day to No Business Knob Shelter with her so she could be with people she knows and then do a 6 mile day to Erwin the next day. We all agreed to hang with G. The day went by quick and the snow was starting to melt, thank God. I was starting to get super sick of the snow and at least today the sun was shining but it was still cold. We got to the shelter early and were the first ones there. We picked our spots and others came filing in as the afternoon progressed. The night was no where near as cold because we were at a lower elevation and the wind was calm.