Day 29- It’s All Smiley’s Fault

April 16-9.7 miles-AT mile marker 311.5

Another cold morning (hard to believe this is the middle of April), but not quite as cold as yesterday. Since we had a few more miles to go today, we were on the trail by 8:15. Smiley caught up to us after he made sure the fire was out in the shelter (he’s very conscientious about that). 

We started out with a climb up Big Butt Mtn (I kid you not, that’s the name). We had an opportunity to bypass it, “butt” of course, we didn’t. 

A nice bit of trail through a clearing. 



Nope nope nope!

Now, that’s the summit of Big Butt. Sure Foot went up, but said it wasn’t really worth climbing up slick rock. There wasn’t really much view, so I didn’t go up. 

We did do a little side trail up to some gravestones. We’ve now passed a number of gravestones/memorials. 


From Big Butt, the descent was really quite nice and fast. By the time we got to Flint Mtn Shelter, at noon on the nose, we had done almost 7 miles! We’ve not done that many miles before lunch...ever. 

Lunch at the shelter was nice (felt right civilized to eat at a picnic table)!

We just had 3 miles to go until Laurel Hostel. Earlier in the day, Smiley had asked me if I’d fallen (shortly after Sure Foot fell-tripped on a root). I said no, but in my head I was thinking, oh no, this like when you ask a touring cyclist is they’ve had any flats...karma you know! Sure enough, not too much later, down I went. Fortunately, I didn’t hurt anything, just got my pants dirty (like they weren’t already dirty). I told Smiley it was all his fault. He accepted the blame graciously. 

We made it to Laurel Hostel. It was a bit of a letdown to find out there was no laundry (short of doing it ourselves in the sink...which I did some), not much food. We had to flip the breaker on the water heater to have hot water for a shower. Gotta say, though, the shower felt good. Hadn’t had a shower since Franklin. 

A most welcome sign

The bunkhouse (Sure Foot is scratching his back of the post).

We were going to take a zero, but have decided it’s not worth it. Oh, I did weigh my pack. With still 5 days of food, I’m at 29 lbs. Not bad!

Oh, and the hostel we are staying in is in Tennessee, but I think we hop back to North Carolina a bit more before we totally leave it behind, and firmly enter our third state. 





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