Winter Wonderland

To everyone that reads my blog,

I would like to apologize to both of you for not updating much recently. A combination of being away at work, being lazy at home, and my computer being screwy and not allowing me to log in to my blog has led to this lack of updates. I'm sure you guys have been on the edge of your seat waiting for the next update so I'm sorry.

The mountains have been incredibly warm for this time of year. I leave to go back into the mountains for another 8 days tomorrow morning and the forecast looks like it is going to be another warm week with highs in the mid 60s and lows only in the low 40s. It feels strange that it is February but I am not complaining one bit. I don't want to get too attached to it because I anticipate another big freeze before spring comes, but I am definitely alright with a warm winter. It sure beats what we went through two years ago on the AT. The amount of snow we went through left me feeling like I would be fine if I never saw snow again in my life. I'll leave you guys with some pictures that make me shiver just looking at them again.

That is taken in the Great Smokey Mountains. Little did we know that would be just the beginning of the most physically challenging few days of my life.

There were miles of stretches where three steps might hold you somewhat near the top of the snow, but every third step or so you found yourself in this post hole position. It was incredibly frustrating and exausting to have to pull ourselves out of this all day.

Reckless, who is from south Georgia and had never seen snow until we began this trip, is also thrilled. Even though it was VERY cold, we wore short sleeves most of the time through the deep snow because we were working so hard to get through it that we got overheated pretty quickly.

Now this one may look like one of the least impressive because the snow is only ankle deep. However, this was the most miserable day of the entire trail because that is not snow. That is a river of ice water that the trail had become and there was no way to walk around it. Also, it was about 35 degrees and raining so it wasn't just our feet that were soaked.

 Those pictures remind me that as much as I love the mountains, they can be pretty cruel in the winter. I spent a lot of time asking myself why I wanted to hike the AT after graduation rather than taking a long trip to the beach. However, we made it through the bad winter weather and I know that I am a much tougher person than I was before. It was the hardest thing I'm sure either of us has ever done. Even the hardest highschool football two-a-days workouts I went through cannot compare to how physically and mentally hard it was to hike through that crazy winter weather for so long.

 Looking back over these photos makes me think that this next week in the mountains with lows only in the 40s and plenty of sunshine will feel like a summer day in Florida.