Day 2 in SMNP

I slept so well last night that I never heard it rain. I am finally sleeping pretty well at night. The group at the shelter all rose fairly early. Matter of fact, the Indian couple woke me up having a loud conversation with the Ridgerunner. That's the down side of camping with a group, I guess. Could have slept much later.

We had a really hard hike today, with some pretty big climbs. The most noticeable thing today was the forest floor continued to be covered in a carpet of white and pink wildflowers. There are others as well, that I am not familiar with. There are some yellow ones that remind me a bit of columbines, and some that look like little violets. I took a lot of flower and trail pics today.

We did get a wonderful view at a place we stopped to have lunch at called Rocky Top. Made me think of that old song, but I have no idea if we were in Tenn. or NC.

We really have hiked north pretty much by ourselves the past 2 days, not really seeing others until we reach the shelters. There have been quite a few vacationers hiking in the other direction on short hikes though.

Not a lot of stories today, because I'm so beat, but the last climb into camp I had a wild turkey following me through the woods, and it sounded just like my brother, Phil. He does an awesome turkey call. The turkey finally walked right through the middle of camp, and it was a huge beautiful male, showing off its feathers. Just a few pics from the trail today. Sorry for so many flowers. The pics truly don't do it justice!






































- Steady and F100

Location:Derrick Knob Shelter, mile 188.8