Appalachian Trail Hike–Day 2

We got up around 6:00 and immediately went to check on our bear bag.  Thankfully it was still there……

We immediately started heating water for for coffee and tea and broke out the Granola bars.   Gotta love this photo with my head lamp on…..

The leaf colors were fairly dull early on in the hike, but as we moved further South, they became more and more colorful.   They were especially nice early in the morning and just before dusk as the sun would kiss the tops of the trees….

We cleaned out the tent and folded it down into this amazingly small bundle…..

I found this cool tree that was covered in Lichen….

It was even cooler when I put the camera under the lichen and took a photo of the underside….didn’t expect it to be brown…..

We left camp around 8:00 and headed on toward our destination.  We had a good laugh about how our trekking poles would pick up leaves along the way…..

We felt a bit like trash collectors doing community service!!!

We found this cool den built into the base of a tree……

Interestingly, the tree was still alive, even though much of the trunk was gone!!

We also passed this mass which I originally thought was a dirt covered rock….

As we passed it, we realized that it actually was a root ball from a fallen Pine Tree…..amazing size!!!!

We walked by a tree stump that had two large gallons of water sitting on it.  This was an example of “Trail Magic”, where non-hikers will go in and leave special treats for the passing hikers……

We arrived at our destination (Dick’s Creek Gap) at 12:05, covering 6.8 miles in four hours…..not a bad rate considering that much of this part was either up or down……

In total, we hiked 16 miles and were both a bit sore when we got back to the truck.  After driving 2-1/2 hours to get home again, we could barely get out of the truck!!!  Now, four days later, we are once again walking normally!!!

It was a fun two days!!!!!!