Hikers do it naturally.

While the temperature got a little cool in the early morning, i was able to stay warm with the layers and sleeping bag. However around 7 o'clock I woke up colder and usual and realize my back was sold since somehow during the night I must have rolled the pad from under me. the problem this presents is that I also rolled the hammock. Unfortunately the mosquito netting is not designed to hold wait and I found it had ripped along the seam along one side. Not the best way to start a morning by exiting a hammock rolling out through a tear. Oh well, after packing and a quick breakfast I was back on the trail. Yesterday was easy in that it involved a lot of downhill walking, however today was mostly uphill for the first 7 miles for an elevation gain of 2600 feet. I originally planned to stay at campsite #52 for the evening, but I got there early enough in that I figured I would just continue through to the end for a total of 11.6 miles. There were some features that I found interesting along the way such as a cave/rock formation waterfall that I found only after following the sound up a steep hill, etc. It was nice to be able to end up right where I left the truck in the end and not have to worry about getting back. Amanda had told me, while driving me to the top for the hike start, of an the old Lufty Baptist Church right where I had parked that I wasn't even thinking of checking out. Once I learned of the history I took a short walk to check it out and was glad to have been able to visit the rustic looking site.

I headed back into Cherokee so that I could run by the Cherokee Indian Museum so I could collect on of the passport stamps that designated a portion of the 'Trail of Tears'. Since I still figured I had time, I headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway to an information center that was supposed to have a stamp as well, however even though I got there before 5pm, the place looked pretty boarded up. I did take the time to do a nice hike on Waterrock Knob that was a bit tough but offered a great view. I went back to the National Park so I could visit the old mill that has remained intact. I wish the inside had been open as it would have been neat to check out the workings of the system, but still quite enjoyed the view outside and walking along the water trough.

Over the past few days I have been experimenting with geotagging and uploading of a GPS track in order to combine them into a file viewable in Google Earth. This should show you a good bit of what the area around Waterrock Knob looks like, the path I took for the hike, and pictures I took along the way. If you can please download the file and take a look at it (assuming you have the free Google Earth program) and let me know what you think. If this works well enough, I plan to upload daily tracks when on my July trip whenever possible.

Here is the file for the Great Smoky Mountains NP hike:
http://mblitch.googlepages.com/MaySmokiesHike2007.kmz

Here is the file for the Waterrock Knob short hike:
http://mblitch.googlepages.com/waterrockknob.kmz



After the hike I headed into town in order to get some food, a bit cleaned up, and use the internet. I was able to find an open wireless connection to check email and make finally get a chance to call back home. I headed south a while until I found a roadside campground where I could grab a quick shower and then continued on my way until I got too tired to drive and pulled into a shopping area parking lot for a rest.