Sprout Day 219-220 (Tuesday & Wednesday, November 1-2, 2016)

We hiked a little over 13 miles to get in to Hot Springs. It was a tough hike because it was hot and humid and the terrain was rough. Coming down into town was really rocky. It's crazy because the weather is unseasonably hot right now but it can change at anytime. One day it's hot and the next it's cold. We've heard from northbound hikers that there was snow in the Smokies last week.

We hiked out of Hot Springs today and went another 13 miles. We are staying at Walnut Mountain Shelter. We're staying up the hill from the shelter and can see the Smokies from here! It's amazing to see what we're about to climb. The climb into the smokies is ridiculous.

Hot Springs was a great trail town. As soon as we walked into town we stopped by the local pub, I think the name was Spring Creek Tavern, for burgers and a drink. It was really good. We had to go next door to the Outfitters to get our permit for the Smokies. You have to get online, pay $20, and print off a piece of paper and carry it with you to the Smokies. After that we went down to the Laughing Heart Hostel and paid $10 to tent outside. Then, we picked up our resupply package.

There's a really good local market that makes good subs so we each got a sub, ate half, and packed the other half out today for lunch. We were planning on leaving Laughing Heart early today but we forgot we had to send stuff home and had to wait on the post office to open. They didn't open until 9:00 a.m. After the post office one thing lead to another and we didn't get out of town until around 11:00.

It was a tough climb out of Hot Springs and the heat didn't help. Since it's November we saw a bunch of bear hunters out today with their dogs. We were sitting at the top of the first climb, eating the other half of that sub, and saw a dog walking down trail. He had a couple GPS collars on so we knew it was someone's hunting dog. Not too long after that we heard a bunch of dogs barking and howling and knew they were on a bear. About an hour later we saw two hunters walking up the trail and I stopped to talk to them for a minute. They said they've killed 7 bears in the past 2 days and that they'll get at least 45 this year. They're only allowed one bear per hunter but they hunt in big groups and everyone helps each other out. They said the dogs have been on two bears today. We will see a lot of bears in the smokies because they're protected there. No hunting in the Smokies. I bet all the bears around here are making a run for the Smoky Mountains!

Water has been so dry lately so we had Poppa Lip send us some Aquamira drops for when there's just stagnant water. If there's not too much flow, and the water looks nasty, I'd rather filter and chemically treat it. Plus there are two hikers about a day in front of us who had the norovirus. It doesn’t matter what filter you have it - won't filter out noro. It has to be chemically treated it too. I don't want either of us to get sick this late in the hike. We have to finish strong and to do that we need to be healthy.

Day: 219-220
Miles hiked: 25.7
Total Miles hiked on the trail: 1933.9
Baby Bear: 1
Bald Eagle: 1
Bear: 1
Bluegill: 2
Butterflies: 8
Chickens: 15
Chipmunks: 3
Cows: 24
Crawfish: 1
Deer: 21
Donkeys: 2
Groundhog: 1
Grouse: 1
Horses: 17
Hummingbird: 1
Inchworm: 1
Really Big Dog: 1
Mice: 2
Moose: 2
Nest of bugs: 2
Newts: 2
Owl: 1
Peacock: 1
Rabbit: 1
Red Squirrel: 1
Skunk: 1
Snail: 1
Snake: 3
Squirrels: 12
Toads:
Trout: 2
Turkeys: 4
Turtles: 107
Vultures: 6
Woodpecker: 1