Overnight backpack along the Appalachian Trail

This past weekend was Mat's first of his 3-day weekends with his new schedule, so we decided to go backpacking. It worked out fantastically. We left on Friday morning to the town of Roan Mountain where we had arranged for a shuttle since this was a point to point hike. We started hiking around 1 p.m. and enjoyed a beautiful clear day with a nice breeze. Roan Mountain is one of my favorite places to go because it is so high up and you get such long distance views. We enjoyed the views and then when we would descend into the woods we got to enjoy all the wildflowers that were blooming. It was an awesome time of the year to be out hiking along the Appalachian Trail!



We arrived at Little Humpback Mountain around 5 or so and hung out.  The views were so amazing up there that we decided we'd camp there.  (In the above picture, you can see where we'll be hiking the next day.  About 1/3 the way up, we found some very fresh bear scat.)  Anyway, we enjoyed the evening and our very gourmet meal of macaroni and cheese.  Once it was dark, we crawled into the tent, a bit later we were woken up by gusting winds.  I don't think we slept the rest of the night.  It was so windy and we wondered if our tent would last.  The whole tent was bending over us.  Somehow the tent didn't rip at the seams and the poles did not break!  I wasn't sure if that happened if we would just stay in the tent and try to wait out the night even with it collapsed on us.  Luckily, I didn't have to find out.



The next morning it was a bit chillier of a hike, but still such an amazing and beautiful section of the Appalachian Trail to hike.  You can hike this trail as a long day hike, but we enjoyed spending the night out.  Good to get a spring backpack in!  This hike really reminded us of where we backpacked for our honeymoon near Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  For those of you not familiar with this area that we currently live in, most of the hiking is done in the trees, so even when you get to the top of the mountain you still don't have much of a view.  I so love finding hikes with long-distance views!

If you look closely in this picture you can see my belly oozing over my hipbelt of my backpack.  I hope I didn't do any permanent damage to the baby!  And Maddy, of course, is loving being outside and hiking around.  She doesn't even mind that she has to carry her own food.  She's just so excited to be out!