AT Addiction

This time last year, Sergio gave me a call on my lunch break and asked me what I thought about hiking the Appalachian Trail in the Smoky Mountains. Of course I loved the idea, so we started planning a life changing experience. We decided for our first trial run, we would start at New Found Gap an end at Fontana Dam. We mapped it at a little over 40 miles to do in 4 days. By the way, for your first hike on the Appalachian Trail, give yourself more time than that. Over 10 miles a day is pretty hard on your body during your first major hiking/backpacking experience. We would start on March 29th and finish on April 1st (Easter). We were so fortunate to have some of our closest friends (Harrison, Rebekah, Cody) and my dear brother, Randy, to come along with us. Because this was our first hiking/backpacking excursion, we were a little un prepared for what we had ahead of us. We got off to a late start on our first day, ending up finishing our first day of hiking close to midnight. You can blame the 2-3 feet of snow we had to trek through going up Clingmans Dome for the late arrival to our first shelter...at which we had reservations. However, because we were so late, the shelter was full, so thank goodness we had a tent to pop up and camp illegally.

To make a long story short, we couldn't really take our time to much on this trip because Sergio had a flight to catch on Monday, April 2nd, at 6:00 am to go to Provo, Utah for his work. It was very important that we couldn't get behind on our schedule....but we did. So what did we do? Well we talked with a ridge runner that told us if we cut through to the Eagle Creek Trail, we could make up our time and make it to our car at a descent time on Sunday, April 1st. Let me just say that the Eagle Creek Trail is one of the most beautiful trails I have ever been on. I probably wouldn't recommend it in the early spring months just because you have a little over 13 raging river crossings. But as they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade...and that's what we did! It was an unforgettable adventure to say the least :) The best part about having to waltz through the river at every corner is that it numbed our feet so the worry of our blisters vanished for the day. We camped on Saturday night along Eagle Creek. There is nothing better than listening to a rolling river throughout the night.

On Easter morning, we awoke and got started. We had over 11 miles to cover and more river crossings in order to make it to our car. We stopped around mile 8 and had Easter dinner. Sergio and I shared a Mountain House "Beef Stew"...perfect for the holidays. After a long day of walking, we made it to our cars. Sun burned, blistered, exhausted, we made it back to Nashville around midnight and Sergio caught his flight on time. All's well that ends well!

Even though we had a bit of a hard time on our first overnight backpacking trip, we were hungry for more as soon as we all recovered. This led to a second hiking trip in fall. This time I was the only girl but I was accompanied by Sergio, my two brothers, Randy and Shane, and my brother-n-law, Kevin. We were the Family Affair :) We started again at New Found Gap and ended at Davenport Gap. This trip was a little over 30 miles and we had, again, 4 days to complete the task. This trip was a lot smoother. We were prepared for anything this time around!

We are now in 2011 and in the process of planning our next Appalachian Trail hike. We are planning to start at Springer Mountain in a couple of months (the time is TBD). The Family Affair is hungry for more and can't wait to start section hiking the AT!