Day 23

Origin: Tri-Corner Knob Shelter
Destination: Green Corner Rd (then 0.1 to Standing Bear Farm hostel)
Today's miles: 18.4
Total miles: 241.8

I wrote this post once but it didn't save for whatever reason, so I'm writing it again a day later so I'm missing some details.

Our biggest day yet. It didn't get quite as cold as we expected, but it was cold enough with temperatures in the low 20s. We ate a cold breakfast and got going. We had an initial tough climb, but most of the day was downhill. From our highest point of the day to the lowest, we dropped nearly 5,000 ft in elevation. Despite the long miles, we made really good time. Magge really impressed me; she's improved immensely since we started.

We had some great views and enjoyed the change in greenery as we descended. The forests at 6,000 ft are still bare but there's young green and flowers everywhere below 2,500 ft. With roughly three miles left, we could hear the traffic on Interstate 40 and we came up on a ridge with power lines running across. I thought it would be a noisy, ugly three miles, but we then dropped into a valley with a beautiful stream tumbling through several waterfalls. If we hadn't needed to resupply, it would have been a perfect place to camp. We came out of that valley just in time to cross I-40. Magge's and my hometowns are separate by about 500 miles on this interstate and we've crossed this point countless times, but we never knew it was an AT crossing. We'll look at this point differently next time we come across it.

We're staying at a hostel just off a gravel road that the AT crosses. It's a collection of simple mountain cabins and is in a really peaceful spot. Our cabin is built right over a creek. We ate a DiGiorno pizza and it was the best frozen pizza we've ever had - the magic of an 18 mile day.

For the record, Magge said today was one of the best days of her life.