Date: 2016-05-04
From: tri corner knob shelter

To: standing bear hostel
Miles today: 18.6

Day 23- May 4, 2016This morning we woke up to sleet. It's was the coldest morning we have experienced yet and it didn't help that all of our shoes, socks, and pants were wet from yesterday's rain. I got up and spent about 40 minutes taping my feet up so I wouldn't get more blisters from the wetness. We had a fairly slow start but knew we were trying to hike an 18.6 mile day, our longest mileage ever attempted. Once we left we started walking fast to warm us up. It took a long time to even start to get a little warm. The sides of the trail were lined with snow. Yes, snow in May while we were at an elevation of over 5,500 ft. It was cold. But eventually we started to warm up. We caught up with funfact after walking like maniacs for a while and hiked the rest of the day with him. It was really cool hiking with another person and having more conversations going throughout the day. The trail was mostly downhill coming out of the smokies and it was cold so we hiked fast. Probably faster than we've ever gone before. There was a strange climate change when we reached a lower elevation where it seemed to go from winter to a warm bright spring day all of a sudden. We ate lunch at a log and tried some new chicken jerky given to us by two men section hiking and we tended our hurting feet. My toe was getting a blister under the toe nail and it hurt badly. We pressed on and as we went, a small trickle of water along the trail grew and grew into a many leveled beautiful waterfall that was quite large. It stretched on for a while and streamed out along the trail. We had a few crossings of the river it formed which were pretty formidable. The last mile of the day was near the hostel we would stay at, Standing Bear. It was near a road and we could hear the traffic,but the wild flowers and overgrowth of plant life made it feel like when I was a child and I found a path that I wasn't supposed to go down but did anyway. I felt like a child sneaking towards a gingerbread house in a story book or like we were headed to a secret place where adventurers congregated. Anyway, it was neat and fun. The three of us made it to the hostel at about 3:40pm where we found jackrabbit and a few other hikers. The place was quaint and let's just say, interesting. It had porter potties and showers that weren't the cleanest to say the least. It also had a plethora of animals ranging from 5 or so dogs that played with a dead mouse and put rocks on our shoes so that we would play fetch with them, two cats that walked on the clean dishes and waited for the pizzas to cook, and a rooster that climbed trees. It's resupply cabin was neat though. It was based on the honor system where you go in and take what you want and write down the prices and tomorrow when we leave, we will pay for the things we took. It had just about everything we needed too. We ate a pizza and some hot pockets, showered, did laundry by hand, and set up in the bunk room. Dregs also took care of my blister under my toe nail as it looked like the whole toe could pop at any moment. It was very painful, but dregs was able to puncture and drain the blister gently. It looked like my toe completely deflated and felt so much better. Hopefully I don't lose the toenail. I hobbled around for the rest of the evening but I think it will be much better in the morning.