The Smokies Tried to Kill Us

Day 26- 10.3 Miles today from Fontana dam road to Molly’s Ridge shelter, 3,957 Feet Up, 1,276 Feet down, Total 253 AT miles

Catch the Early Train

Started out at 7:30 this morning climbing from the parking lot. We dropped our permits in the box and headed up to shuckstack. The climb wasi about 2,000 feet in 3 1/2 miles. It’s a nice cool morning probably in the 40s. So far it’s cloudy.

I started with a base weight 19 lbs this time which was wonderful. This included town food (donuts and subs) and eight days worth of food to get us through the Great Smoky National Park. I’m trudging up this hill to Shuckstack with about 40 lb on my back.

I’m not even hungry but I’m already taking a mental inventory of all my heavy food items that I want to try to consume in the next couple of days.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire

The Smokies are living up to their name today with the low lying clouds the woods in the mountains look smoky.

We finally made it up to Shuckstack but it was pretty grueling for about us. We both are feeling pretty rough today as we continued on to make the climb up to Doe Knob. We both were also struggling with our headspace today.

Is that snow?

The top of the knob was carpeted in these beautiful purple and white small flowers almost look like snowflakes in the forest it was absolutely stunning. It’s a scene we would witness repeatedly through the Smokies in the next few days.

 We lumbered on and eventually made it to Molly’s ridge shelter. That was a long hard climb for us especially after several days being off trail but we made it to home for the night. After setting up for the night we quickly lay down and fell asleep.

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