Hello all, new here and tried searching, but couldn't find what I was looking for.

Little backstory: I live in southern NJ. My six year old son and I are interested I hiking the JMT in 4 years, when he's 10 along with my nephew, who will be 18. Kid loves to be outdoors and we've done some hikes, but nothing overnight. To get a feel for whether this is going to be doable, I thought a few days out would fun for us.

We have a friend who lives in Charlotte, so the idea is that we would drive down and somewhere around the VA/NC border, my wife would drop us off and a few days later pick us up, maybe 40-50 miles down the trail. Meanwhile, she would take our daughter to visit the friend.


I’m looking for suggestions for a 40-50 mile hike southbound in NC. Something we could do in 4-5 days.

Thanks all!