Greetings from beautiful North Carolina

That's right. Yesterday we made the border of North Carolina. Sorry for the Radio silence these past couple of days, I've turned the phone on every night but this is the first time I've gotten service. It's not even that good right here, hopefully this goes through.

We managed a hitch out of Helen from Henry who played disc golf and listened to phish. We got out around noon and wound up making good miles. The afternoon was pretty sunny and warm and we had nice views all afternoon. A perk of winter trekking is that the leaves don't obstruct our views on the high ridges. We spent the night 13 miles north of Unicoi gap at deep gap shelter. This was the first night we spent alone so far. The shelter had lofts but it was cold so we set up the tent inside.

On Sunday we had a shorter day. We did 8 miles to plum orchard gap shelter where we met milkman and Josh. It was raining that day, which was alright because it meant the snow and ice were melting away. Since then the trail has been almost entirely clear. 

Monday we got a late start but still banged out 12 miles to get to standing Indian shelter. This was probably the best day of hiking we've had overall just because it was sunny and warm. We met flash, who is only 17 and hiking as a gap year. It's weird not being the youngest ones out. North Carolina shelters don't have the nice bear cables that Georgia ones do,  so we had to rig a beat bag. Brett and I did some great engineering and when you see the pictures you'll be proud.

Today we got another late start. They're kinda becoming our thing now and we're trying to change that. Our options were a shelter at 8 and one at 16 with a big mountain in between. I'm writing fairly early in the afternoon from the 8 mile option. It's warm but raining so I think we made the right call.

We're hoping to make Franklin, NC by Thursday where we'll get another hotel stay and supplies through Fontana dam.

Good to be warm, finally.