Date: 2012-04-14
From: burningtown gap

To: Gatlinburg, TN
Miles today: 90.0
Weather: scattered clouds

So I quit doing the daily logs, they just got too hard with socks over my hands to keep my fingers from freezing. I started out Sunday at burning town gap and did an average of 13.3 mile per day for the next 6 days. Now I know what you're asking and yes.... I do have a nickname for my legs, the right one is mt Vesuvius and the left one is Zeus, I even nicknamed my pack, it's called Kilimanjaro... You hikers play your cards right and you might just get to meet the whole gang.... In all seriousness I realized I have gotten my hiker legs on tuesday when I did the second longest uphill on the AT and the steepest climb (Jacob's ladder) on a 14 mile day and the next day felt fine to do 17.4... Now the problem is mental, the last two days I found myself repeatedly thinking, why in the hell am I freaking doing this? I mean walking through the woods for 3 weeks I'd thought by now I'd have some zen peace about me or come up with a better mouse trap or something.... Nope... I'm hopeful but no zen peace moments just yet. The day I started back I started feeling pains in my feet, the downhills are what's getting me, I'm hoping loosing weight will help this as I go and today on my zero day I got new insoles for my shoes. That was an interesting experience... My feet smell like something that should be studied by science, bottled up and used for crowd control by the military when they're being threatened by angry momma grizzly bears. The dude that gave me my insoles, who's job has exposed him to thousands of hikers boots said, bar none, that "is the worst smell I've ever smelled from anything, let alone a boot"... I felt kinda proud like maybe I should get some type of award, Elisa was less impressed. So this week took me about half way through the Great Smokey Mountains. I learned that this funny base noise I've heard like a very heavy ball bouncing down to rest (thump... thump.... Thump thump thumpthumpthump) is in fact from illegal whiskey stills and they are not to be investigated. I also learned that the Great Smokies can be (and were) REALLY really cold. The first night up there was the coldest I've ever spent outdoors, all our water froze and it was really hard to get up at 5:45 and get out of my sleeping bag, start a fire, melt enough ice to make coffee and get going. However once I get hiking about an hour I was loving the cool air and the fresh breeze. Kinda helps ya take fewer breaks.So about day 3 I realized what a precious commodity food is in the smokies there is absolutely no such thing as a 5 second rule among hikers. Trail mix for example will sometimes spill on the ground when you're eating it. A precious yellow M&M fell when I was snacking and I thought I'll just wait to eat that until last, until one of fellow hikers thought it was somehow anyone's M&M and went to pick it up. I explained that I was gonna forage around after I ate all of my delicious trail mix and pick up any fallen soldiers all at once, this seemed perfectly logical to him and I and we didn't have any problems after. Also a beard is helpful here as mine seems to catch and preserve roughly 1/10 of everything I attempt to eat, therefore saving it from the theoretically communal ground.The weather this week was not rainy at all and the clear nights with all the stars out have been beautiful. The last two days I've definitely been questioning why I'm doing this and I'm told it's normal to have "hiker blues" a few weeks in but they pass and you go back to loving the beauty that surrounds you. Hope that happens soon. I'm going to try to make 16.6 on avg this week as I've calculated that I need to be above a 15 mile avg to finish in Sept. I'm told getting 20 mile days is easy in parts of Virginia an Pennsylvania, I hope this is true and hope my body doesn't give out. Lots of guys have been dropping out due to ankle and knee problems.