April 15

Ten.  Twenty.

Climbed up from the shelter this morning to some great views at Eagle Rocks, then back down into Cooper Gap.  At some point in between the two, I crossed another major milestone.  10% completion of the AT, at mile 218.4.  I flew up and down Mt Sequoyah, and up and down Mt Chapman, crossing over 6200 feet yet again.  Ate a quick snack at Tri-Corner Knob, then up and around Mt Guyot.  I was hiking for much of the day through more gorgeous evergreen forests, in some places the trees were so dense you could only see a few feet off the trail into the woods.  It's been an amazing sight to see trees that have fallen over, and in doing so, the entire disc shaped root system is pulled up with it.  Sometimes the roots had wrapped around a huge rock underground, and when the tree fell and the roots pulled up out of the ground, the rock was now suspended several feet in the air, trapped in the roots.  In other places the trail would bust out onto a ridge line again, for more shear drops and awesome views.  At one point I took my pack off, and simply just sat down right on the trail and soaked in the views for a good 15 minutes.  I passed Cosby Knob shelter after about 13 miles, and it was still early in the afternoon, and I was feeling great, so on I went.  I finally rolled in to Davenport Gap shelter, the last shelter in the Smokies for northbounders, around 5pm.  Some section hikers, Three Ten, Sweetwater, and Crush were there.  Amazing story about Crush, he actually started the trail a while ago, but back in Georgia, he suffered a ruptured appendix, hiked out to a road crossing, gave the 911 responders his exact GPS location using the notes provided in the AT Guide (kudos to 'AWOL', you literally saved his life by having that info in your guidebook!), took a couple weeks off to recover from surgery, and is now back on the trail.  Hardcore!  Anyway, this shelter was small and dirty, and no privy.  It had fencing on the open side, to keep larger animals out, and no bear cables.  So you hang your food on a mouse trapeze inside the shelter and hope a bear doesn't come rattle the fence during the night.  Sounds fun.  I had just rolled out my mat and sleeping bag, when we heard a commotion coming down the trail.  A local guy had parked at the road crossing, 0.9 miles north of the shelter, and pulled a cart up to us with a cooler full of Mountain Dew and Sunkist, and get this...3 pizzas from Little Caesars, which were still warm!  I was amped about my improved dinner selection.  I chugged a few sodas.  It was getting dark, so we all turned in for the night.  What a great treat, and especially since I had just finished my first 20.0 mile day!  What a way to end the Smokies.

Dense forest in the Smoky Mountains.