Newsflash!

On our way out of town this morning, we weighed our packs.....both of us are at 29 pounds with four days or food and our water!!! Not quite "ultralight" yet but we feel like real long-distance hikers now.

Knee-covery



View from atop Mt. Albert. Worth the climb!



The past six days, we've been taking it slow and focusing on my knee recovery - with some success! Yesterday, we hiked 11 miles without too much pain, and we plan to build up from there. Georgia and North Carolina are both infamously tough on the joints with their big elevation changes, so we are hoping to get through the Smokies and crank up the mileage once we get to Virginia, where the trail is much flatter. It has been a personal struggle for me to slow down and stop pushing the knee to go until it can't, but thankfully Brian has been patient and firm on holding me to our "knee schedule".



We started our six day run with Mt. Albert - we didn't have to push our packs, but we did have to stow our trekking poles and use all four limbs. There was a fire tower at the top with amazing 360 degree views. The knee schedule only had us do 2.2 miles that day - pretty much up Albert and back down.



We had more rainy weather, enduring 16 straight hours of pelting rain one night. Everything we have was wet and covered in mud by morning. With another rainy forecast the following night, we sucked it up and spent our first night in a shelter (we typically hike to a shelter for the water source, bear bag cables, and privy, and then camp nearby). The shelters themselves are three-sided wooden structures that sleep 4 - 12 and usually have a picnic table for cooking dinner. They are notoriously rodent-ridden, which is the reason for our avoidance, but that night we didn't wake up to any squeaking or scratching. Either way, we've decided that in a thunderstorm, shelters are the way to go.



Rain often turns the trail into a stream.



In and around the shelters, we usually eat and relax around a campfire with other hikers. We've met a lot of great folks and come across some creative trail names - some of our favorite names include Squid Belly, Ten Minutes, Impulse, and Captain Guts. It is a weird experience to get to know someone and never learn their real name.

Tonight we are at a white water rafting outpost near Bryson City, NC to resupply - in three to four days, we'll be entering the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the most visited national park in the country and home to 400 - 600 black bears. The Smokies will take us about a week and usher us across our second state line - Tennessee! Our next visit with civilization will likely be Gatlinburg....until then, we miss you all!

- Bearcub

Goodbye Georgia, Hello North Carolina

North Carolina is much prettier than Georgia.

A few days ago, we kissed Georgia goodbye and crossed our first state line into North Carolina. It feels pretty good to have one state under our belts, and to be only a couple of miles away from the 100 mile mark. However, we've been taking it pretty slow lately due to the fact that Bearcub has been having knee problems. It's not uncommon for people on the trail to have all sorts of leg problems in the first couple weeks of the hike, mostly due to the incessant pounding on the joints when going down steep, rocky declines. We're hoping to keep the knee healthy by taking it slow until we get to Virginia where the trail flattens out a bit and we can start putting in some big mileage days.

Over the past week, the weather and the scenery has been absolutely beautiful. As for wildlife, we haven't seen a whole lot aside from birds and bugs. Lots of bugs. The only two notable sightings were a snake and a mole. Both were right in the middle of the trail and nearly squashed by Bearcub's mighty boot. We didn't bother hanging around the snake to take a picture, but Bearcub's eyes lit up when we saw the cute little mole. Therefore, we were obligated to snap a photo, and I was obligated to pick it up and remove it from the trail so that it wouldn't get stepped on. Don't worry, I scooped it up with a pile of leaves and sanitized my hands immediately afterwards. I'm just hoping this crazy rash on my hands goes away soon. That's a joke, Mom and Dad.

Who's this little guy?

Right now, we're sitting in a Microtel in lovely Franklin, NC waiting for Larry's Taxi Service to come pick us up and take us back to the trail. Within the first few miles back on the trail today, we'll have to tackle the notorious Albert Mountain. Rumor has it that people have had to put away their hiking poles and climb up the mountain with their hands, pushing or pulling their packs up alongside of them. We've noticed that people on the trail tend to exaggerate, and some other notorious mountains proved to be not too big of a challenge. Besides, nothing named Albert can be that tough. That's almost as bad as Guy Line.

- Albert Guy Line