4/25 Hot Springs, NC

274 miles from Springer.

19 days since my last entry. My initial intention with this blog and my journal was to share the majority of the significant events and experiences that I encounter along my way, but that has been much more difficult than i anticipated. My schedule goes as so: wake up, get water, make coffee, pack up camp, eat breakfast, and then head on the trail; Hike, snack, hike, snack, get to camp, get water, eat, make a fire, set up camp, hang bear bag, hang out with the boys, then sleep. On most days, this schedule is rushed due to 7 or 8 hours of fighting mountains. So when i roll into camp, the last possible thing that i want to do is write, especially after hiking alone all day. But I'm working on my will power, more and more each day.

Despite the monotony that this schedule sounds like, trail life is amazing, and very exhausting. But the thing that I have come to enjoy most is the camping aspect. Every night, we find a fresh new campsite, in a place that I've never been to before, on a mountain that I've never climbed or seen before. It's quite amazing actually. I'm a man without a home, or at least I carry it on my back. This whole ordeal still baffles me, and I still have certain moments where i realize what I'm doing and how far I've come already, but also how far I have yet to go. 273 miles is minuscule when charted on the AT map, but it still feels like a major accomplishment.

So in the past 2 and a half weeks since my last entry, too much has gone on to recount it all, but it's had it's ups and downs, it's frustrations and joys, and it's pains and comforts. There were quite a few days where i wondered why the hell i was out here, and where i cursed each mile that lay ahead. These thoughts usually come towards the beginning of a long climb or an 18 mile day (definitely not always, but some days can just be mentally painful.) But right on the other side of the spectrum, some days are so breathtaking that i wonder why normal life can't be more like trail life, or why so many people are scrambling to push into debt and materialism instead of experiencing the world. That's a thought that has been on my mind a lot recently. We are brought up through our school systems to crave the American Dream, and aren't shown any other options. You need to get a job that produces six figures that you'll end up loathing, to buy a car that's exciting for a week, and a house that's way too big, and to obtain comforts that only make you lazier, all to find 'happiness'. I'm not saying that I wont go back to school, but i need to find an occupation not for the money, but one that i love and can pour myself into. After all the majority of your life is spent working is it not? I just feel like people should be taught more often that life lived in the most seemingly unconventional ways can often be the most rewarding, and that there is a massive and beautiful world out there, and that it's meant to be experienced and admired.

This has just been an extremely eye opening experience for me so far, and i feel the travel bug burrowing itself within me. I want to see the world and experience life while I'm in my prime. I want to become an old man without any regrets, who feels as though he has truly lived.

Anyways, on a less dramatic note, the highlight of the past few weeks have been my journey through the Great Smokey Mountains. From Georgia up to the southern end of the park, the mountains all start to look the same, and each view blends together. So when I entered the Smokey's, I didn't expect much difference from the first section, but the Smokey's are something to be admired. The trail never goes below 5,000 feet in the Smokey's, and reaches up to 6,600 which is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, at Clingman's Dome. the majority of the trail hopes from ridge line to ridge line. Some of the most spectacular sections in the Smokey's travel over ridge lines that are two feet wide with a several hundred foot drop on either side, and views into the valleys 5000 feet below you, and of the mountains beyond. Once you're in the Smokey's at elevation and look out into the endless cascade of towering mountains, there is a feeling that you are in a wilderness in one of it's rawest forms. But you can't help but feel microscopic when you're in the mountains looking out into the horizon. Who am I but a spec on this massive object, hurling through an incomprehensibly mammoth space? Foot travel absolutely puts a whole new meaning to size and distance. You don't quite understand the distance of a mile until you've hiked hundreds of them, and it's hard to understand how large the world is until you've spent a month hiking to have hardly covered a pinprick on the globe. Now when i get in a car, it's almost as if I'm traveling through time and fast forwarding hours of my day. I can't imagine how that feeling will be amplified once i reach Maine.       

Rambling... cease.
I hope everyone is doing well back home.
Much Love, I miss you all very much.
Go travel = )