"Bob Peoples gives his boots blisters."

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog. Here's a couple posts to cover what we've done.

We woke up April 4th to a beautiful sunrise at Overmountain Shelter. We had been told that the section of the trail we would be doing that day was the prettiest section in the south. Sure enough, it was.

We hiked over Little Hump and Big Hump (two balds with 360 degree views of the mountains in NC). We had clear skies and could even see the Black Mountains which contains Mt. Mitchell, the highest mountain east of the Rockies. Shortly after leaving the incredible views from Big Hump, we left North Carolina for good.

Most of the 20 thru-hikers from Overmountain were headed to Mountaineering Shelter which sleeps 14, so we wanted to get a spot. We had set out early because we had to resupply and get a package Brie had sent us to Roan Mountain, Tennessee. After about 30 minutes of standing by the road trying to get a hitch into town, a friendly lady who owns the Greasy Creak Hostel gave us a ride. She dropped us off at Bob's Dairyland where we ate lunch. Bob had hikers in mind when he created the Holy Cow Burger. We both had it. It contains 15 oz of hamburger meat, 6 slices of bacon, some ham, a couple onion rings, 3 slices of cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Then we had some ice cream. Needless to say, it was incredible.

After lunch, we walked over to the post office to pick up Brie's package. Thanks Brie! While at the post office, a nice lady in a red punch buggy offered us a ride to the grocery store and back to the trail, which saved us a lot of trouble. In all, going into town only costed us 2 and a half hours, and while hiking the next 10 miles to the shelter, we discovered we were ahead of 5 other hikers which easily allowed us to get a spot in the shelter.

The next day, it began to rain before we started hiking. It wasn't a hard rain but it was constant, got us wet, and cold. It quickly turned into a pretty miserable day. Not as miserable as Smuggles' day though. He randomly threw up and passed out for 20 minutes. When he woke up, he was wet and coming close to hypothermia. To make matters worse, he was the last one in the group so no one would walk upon him to help him out. To make matters even more worse, while doing his business, the branch upon which he was sitting broke. Rough day for Smuggles. Anyway, as I was getting closer to the shelter for lunch, some of the rain on my jacket was beginning to freeze and drips of rain from the leaves were turning to icicles. It was pretty cold. When I got to the shelter, I had to warm my hands up for 20 minutes before I had enough finger strength to mess with my food. We all left the shelter one by one knowing that with the easy terrain we could be to the hostel, Kincora in about 2 hours. So I popped my headphones in and left the dry shelter shivering. Hiking at brisk pace, I slowly began to warm up and thanks to James Taylor, all I could think of was Oh Mexico (apparently it's like 100 degrees down there).

Soon enough, we all made it to the hostel, owned by Bob Peoples. We took hot showers and Bob took us into town to get some food. Later that night, we got to hang out with Bob Peoples. He's incredibly smart man in probably his 70's who has a couple PhDs and has hiked many trails in Europe and South America. He told us of all sorts of knowledge I had never heard before. It was great to stay at his hostel and get to meet him. He's a very well respected man along the AT.

Another post coming soon.

- Matt