I am now home and in my bed recovering from one the best experiences I have ever had. Hiking on the Appalachian trail in the smokies. This became a dream of mine over a year ago when a friend of mine introduced to me the idea and it stuck. over the year we collected the gear that we needed and tried to get into some physical shape. on August 27th we headed to Cosby campground to meet Adam Batson for our 4 day hike. we put up our tents, ate our last good meal in town and settled down for the night. At 8am Thursday the next morning we were shuttled up to where our hike would begin. Clingmans dome. it was the highest point along the AT in the smokies. around 6000ft. they dropped us off there and away we went, never had a backpack on for more than 5 minutes in our life.. lol. it was me, Cheyenne Renee Oliver, Sierra and Adam. Our packs weighed approx of 30LBs or a little less. the first day was killer for me.. By the 6 mile my legs stopped working. i was in allot of pain and i couldnt lift my legs. we had to make it to the first shelter by dark and we had 11 miles to hike that day. i was devastated and thought for sure i was not going to make it. just lifting my legs was excruciating pain. at 2 miles left to our first destination Adam backtracked to where i was and took my pack.. I wont lie.. i was so upset and felt like a failure. Chey helped me with her yoga moves until we finally made it to camp 10 hours from our starting point. what a day. my muscles were cramping all night and I wasnt sure if when I got up the next day if i was going to be able to walk. The next day came and we woke up to a beautiful sunrise and a new day. to my surprise and i am sure to everyone elses surprise I actually felt pretty good. we had 8 miles to go that day so we packed up and away we went. i found out that going uphill was way better for me. going downhill is what hurt so bad. I made such good time trekking uphill and it felt exhilarating.. the views were amazing that day and I was learning to work through the pain, mind over matter. we made good time and we bunked down for our second night. it wasnt until the 3rd day that my feet started to hurt worse than any of my muscles. going downhill proved to be a challenge. it felt good being fit enough to trekk uphill and not not get winded but down hill was almost unbearable .everytime my toes would hit the front of my shoes pain would shoot up it. we only had 6 miles to go that day and it was an easy hike. we took this time to really rest and recuperate. Day 4 was going to be a very long day, we still had almost 10 miles to go back to where we had left our truck at Cosby. it was a hard day but i found out the wearing my hiking sandals brought me such relief, so the last 3 miles i hiked in them and it was very much enjoyable. we made to 10 mile hike that day in 7 hours. we felt great!!! Chey did great the whole time and so did Adam besides some sore muscles of course, Sierra has bad feet so she was in allot of pain herself but she was a true little trooper, carried her our pack the entire time. the last night it stormed and it was the heaviest rain fall i had ever experienced in my life. we meet allot of nice people, some from France and even from Russia. all in all we had the best time ever and i wouldnt change a thing except for my shoes.. lol . Feel very blessed by God to have been able to do this and see just a little part of His wonderful world. thanks for reading :)
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 15:32:21 +0000
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