3/19-3/22 Neels Gap to Dicks Creek Gap

3/19 After a good nights rest at the hostel at Mountain Crossings, I woke up rain.. As you can tell I'm tired of the rain at this point. I just want it to be sunny. Well anyway, I got resupplied and headed on to my destination for the day which was Low Gap Shelter. To put it lightly today's hike sucked. It was a hike I have done before and my feet were killing me all day. I was not in the best of moods...

3/20 Well after the shitty day yesterday, I woke uo feeling great! The sun was out and there was blue skies, something I had not seen since the 1st day. I only hiked about 7.5 miles to the next shelter on Blue Mountain. Later on that night I finally got my trail name!!! I am now known on the trail as Smokie. This name came to me as I was sitting by the campfire trying to smoke my cigar and the smoke from the campfire kept on following me around so everyone around the campfire started calling me Smokie.

3/21 Today was a great day, I hiked 13 miles in about 6 hours. I hiked over Rocky Mountain and Tray Mountain and both had gorgeous views. I ran into trail magic 3 times today which was crazy. All in all it was probably the best day on the trail.

View from Rocky Mountain

Heading up Tray Mountain

View from one side of Tray Mountain

Other side of Tray Mountain

My hiking buddies taking a break on Tray Mountain

3/22 Today was a really easy day for me. I woke up around 2pm and started hiking around 230. I woke up so late because I am going into town today!! One of my good friends Sarah goes to school up here so she is going to pick me up at the gap. As I killed a shit ton of time and hiking as slow as I can I arrived at the gap. There was a great surprise of trail magic at the gap!!! I had a bunch of food from the trail angels and I was given so much food that I didn't have to resupply. Around 6pm Sarah picked me up and I stayed at her place which was pretty awesome because it was free.

Deep Gap Shelter (I did not stay here)

Trail Angels

After hiking in the rain for several days the sunshine has been such a blessing and it has been amazing. The people on the trail are some of the coolest people I've met. I am having the time of my life out here and I can't wait experience the rest..

Also on another note my group of hiking buddies I have been hiking with are named Jahmonji, Blazing Sandles, Hampster, and Redwood.

Happy Trails!!!

Lucas "Smokie" Varnadore