April 8

Easter

Woke up and read a few passages of the Easter story this morning in lieu of attending service anywhere.  Packed up camp and headed back toward the trail.  When I came out of the woods, there were 2 ladies standing by the tracks to greet us with a large ziplock bag of Easter goodies!  Hard boiled eggs, gum, candy, and a very hiker specific treat of Clif Bars and hand sanitizer.  Awesome!  The Easter bunny even comes to the AT.  Full of sugar, we hit the trail at about 11:30am, with nothing but climbing ahead for the next 8 miles.  In the lower elevations, spring has sprung.  The trees are starting to leaf out in bright fresh greens.  Wild flowers are everywhere.  Particularly interesting are these white flowers, that in some places cover an entire mountainside along the trail, making it appear as there's a light dusting of snow on the ground.  We passed the first shelter coming out of the Nantahala gorge mid-afternoon, and pushed on to Cheoah Bald.  At an elevation of 5062 feet, we tented right at the summit with excellent views.  Throughout the waning hours of the evening several hikers set up their campsites up there too.  By nightfall, there was KB, Darwin, Lucky, Lewis, Napster, Buehler, and myself.  Buehler was hiking with an accordion (wow!), and played several tunes for us around the campfire while the sun set for the night.  Magical.  At one point he started playing the Tetris theme song, so that was pretty awesome.  Short hiking day, but it was certainly memorable.  And so far, my new shoes seem to be working out nicely.

Easter bunnies.