I spent the majority of the past week in Tennessee where me and my two best friends, Paul and Andy spent 5 days backpacking through the Appalachian mountains. It was quite an adventure with both highs and lows. There was a lot that went wrong, but when all was said and done, the LORD kept us safe and we learned a lot about ourselves, each other, and backpacking.
So here's the tale:
Friday: We left Chicago with high spirits, tons of new gear, and a general excitement for the trip ahead. After 10 hours of traveling and a stop at Shoney's (an average-at-best restaurant native to Tennessee), we finally arrived at our campground. After finding out there weren't any available campsites, we also discovered the impact of the government shut down. We were told that if the government shut down on Saturday morning, the National Parks would close too, which meant we couldn't backpack. Our trip was in danger before we even put our boots on.
Saturday: Thankfully, the park stayed open and everything was all set to go. We started our hike in the late morning on top of Clingman's Dome, the second highest mountain this side of the Mississippi. We began our trip going the wrong direction, but after an extra 1.5 miles of hiking, we found ourselves hiking along a section of the Appalachian Trail. After lunching with some interesting through-hikers, we continued down the mountain on until we met up with Hazel Creek. During one of our creek crossings, while traversing a log over the waterfall, Paul dropped his GPS into the river. A few minutes later, Andy and I enjoyed some trail mix while watching a naked Paul get sloshed around at the base of the waterfall in an effort to recover his gear. He never did find it. After 14 miles of knee-splitting downhill and over 16 river crossings, we got to our camp around dark. Very defeated. Very tired. And very hungry. Oh and one more thing; our water filter broke after dinner.
Sunday: The LORD woke us up on Sunday to a warm sun and the promise of a shorter day of only 9 miles. With our spirits lifted a bit, we started off strong. As we continued making our way down into the valley, we had a great day of hiking, including the discovery of the ruins of an old town from the early 1900's. We arrived at camp early and thoroughly soaked ourselves in the mountain river. After enjoying some reading and relaxation by the fire, we called it a night. An uneventful, but successful day.
Monday: Today was another 14 mile day. With some directions from some other hikers, we set off towards the lake at the center of the valley. After hiking along the lake shore most of the day we finally arrived at our camp...a little sooner than expected. It wasn't until after we had taken off our boots, hung our socks, and started to unpack that we discovered we were sitting at the wrong campsite. After reluctantly restoring our gear to the packs and hiking 2 more miles down the trail, we finished our beast of a day at a lovely campsite where the river flowed into the lake. It felt amazing to get to camp because the rest of the trip consisted of shorter mileage hiking and our packs were beginning to get noticeably lighter. We also concluded that our bodies were beginning to adapt to the backpacking lifestyle and the whole trip seemed much more enjoyable.
Tuesday: The frustrating thing about water is most things only takes a few moments to become soaked....but can take days to dry out. We all awoke throughout Monday night as a result of a severe thunderstorm. After frantically packing up our wet/muddy gear on Tuesday morning, we set off in the rain. Cold and wet, we left the lake and started the trek back up the mountain. We ran into a massive wild boar that was initially mistaken for a bear, struggled with some downed trees on the trail, and hiked a few miles uphill in a stream. Literally. 10 miles after our wet start on Tuesday, we arrived at camp and proceeded to set up genius rain shelter before crawling into the tent for an afternoon nap. It had rained all day and into the evening. Everything was soaked. Water, cold, and wind had made everything fairly miserable. In the words of Andy; "Everything is so wet it's like my balls are pruny."
Wednesday: We awoke early on Wednesday morning energized by the sun and optimistic about our last day of hiking. We decided to cram in two days of hiking into one so we could finish early. We crossed the seven most dangerous river crossings in the Smokey Mountains early in the day, and nobody (or no equipment) was lost. We enjoyed most of the hike until the 2000ft climb back to the top of mountain. We pushed through the last of our hike and had a great time taking our victory pictures and phone calls back at the car. UNFORTUNATELY, our victory was short lived as my car had some major engine problems. So we rented a motel in the nearby city so as to get it fixed in the morning.
Thursday: The LORD continued to bless us on our journey as the car was fixed relatively cheaply and and quickly. We were on our way home by late morning and I finally made it back to Grand Rapids by 11:00 at night where I was welcomed by a fresh plate of cookies, some awesome apartment decorations and the open arms of my wonderful Katie. The picture to the left was taken from our starting point on the top of the mountain, the specks of blue in the valley are the parts of the lake we hiked along.
By the end of this trip, we had gone through a lot of new experiences. Backpacking in bear country, hiking in the rain, filtering water with broken gear, and fixing a car in a foreign town. All in all, the LORD kept us safe and sound. For better or worse, all of the events of the week (both good and bad) were awesome, and although it was one of the most challenging 57 miles of my life, it certainly was a great adventure.
