Huffhike

Day 13 (Mile 234.2)
After making it to camp after resupplying I met a day hiker from Boston who gave me some of his beer and we got to talking. He told me that he came from Charlies Bunion and said it was well worth the detour. By the time I woke up I realized if I played it right I would be able to catch the Sunrise. So I quickly packed up camp and started to make my way to the blue blaze.

After about 5 minutes I realized that if I started to jog I may be able to make it quicker. After about half a mile I realized I was cruizing toward rolling my already tweaked ankle so I stopped running and sped hiked to the blue blaze. It was well worth the push as I caught one of the most beautiful sunrises Ive seen in my life.

That ended up becoming the theme of the day, over the last 2 days in the Smokey Mountains I was struggling to get clear views. But today was so beautiful as there wasnt any clouds in the sky so every outlook was a beautiful outcrop of mountains. The wildest thing that I kept coming back to was back home in New England most of the high peaks are bald, however out here the mountains are taller but still have trees until the summit.

Anways around noonish I took my lunch break. When I got to the shelter I noticed that the ridge runner was doing some privy duty, so I said hi and guiltitly ate my lunch from a distance. Today was a pretty solid lunch, I took wraps and added ranch cheeto chips with some spicy tuna packets.

While streching at the shelter I saw someone running down the trail. The guy looked wicked familiar, it then hit me it was THE Will Peterson, of course I said “hi” and wished him well on his FKT attempt. As quickly he appeared he was off trying to crush some miles. After a few minutes my adrenaline lowered and I packed up and headed towards the last shelter of the day.

After walking the last 3-4 miles with a wicked cool guy from Italy I made it to camp. I then was killing some time when two hikers came in camp saying they were going to push some miles to see the sunset on the Mount Cammerer fire tower, I asked if I could join in and they said sure. So I then took the 3 mile hike to the split and then the 0.6 hike to the fire tower. The views of the sunset was breathtaking, its wild to see how far away the mountains are from the surrounding towns of Gatlinburg and Dollyworld. It was especially prevalent after the sun went down and you could see the lights of those cities in the distance.

Day 14 (Mile 255.9)
After waking up at a designated campsite (The Smokey Mountains make you sleep in designated campsites and does not allow stealth camping). I headed out of the trail to leave the Smokey Mountains. Thankfully the decent into the Smokey Mountains was long so it wasnt too steep or strenuous.

After heading into a gap, I reached the end of my first map and I opened my second map on Farout. It was a pretty cool experience to switch maps. After I kept hiking on, the hike up the first peak today, Snowbird Peak was brutal, it was a long up hill strech where each turn got progressively harder.

As I approached the summit I was feeling it so I pondered what to do? Do I pull the emergency tag of David Goggins podcasts or a quick music solution? I settled on the music solution on threw on some Motley Crue and slowly summited the mountain. It was well worth the hike as the views were breathtaking. I then hiked to the next shelter, at first I was thinking of calling the day at 15 miles. However, someone told me to push on to try to summit Max Patch and stealth camp. That was 1000% the correct decision, it was by far the most gorgeous views Ive seen on the trail so far, surrounded 360 views of the peaks, with no tree coverage. After I walked over the steal site and made camp for the night, where Im at now.

In the next few days Ill walk through Hot Springs for my first trail town resupply. On top of that I should be in a reasonable position ot make trail days (17 mile to average it) so thats a win.

Blue Blaze – side trail