Back in August I asked for advice for a section hike my husband and I were planning. Thank you to everybody who gave advise.
We ended up hiking about 27 miles from Wayah Bald Tower to the NOC in 3 days and 2 nights. Overall, we had a great time. We learned very quickly, our packs were too heavy and we will not be packing a lot of unnecessary stuff on our next section hike.
We met a lot of people on the trail. We even met White Buffalo, he is a SOBO through hiker and should either be finished by now or will be finished very soon.
I didn't like staying in the shelters. We stayed in Cold Spring Shelter our first night with White Buffalo. One of my biggest fears in life are rats and mice. I have heard that they are in shelters and I was afraid to go to sleep that night for fear one would nibble on my ear or try to get in my sleeping bag (don't laugh at me, LOL). My husband snores really loud, and that night I believe his snoring kept the mice away. But it kept me up and the bats must have enjoyed his snoring because they were flying around the shelter all night. The next night we stayed in our tent and I had the best sleep of my life.
The last 5 miles of the hike was pretty rough. It's all down the mountain! My knees felt like someone was hitting them with a baseball bat, and I'm pretty 2 of my toenails are coming off. With the pain in my knees and toes, I still enjoyed my time on the AT. I never felt better about myself. I like to say it was a "holistic" challenge. Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenge. It was really hard at times, but if it were easy, everybody could do it. Can't wait to get back on the trail.