Backpacking Adventure

Ahhhh, there's nothing better than sitting around an open flame in the middle of the mountains with some of your best friends in the world. The temperature was a cool 55-60 degrees and the only sounds you hear are cracklings of the fire and the hypnotic flow of a trout stream just 30 yards away. This was the ambience that benchmarked the opening night of this past weekends backpacking trip with me and five of my good buddies. We hiked into the mountains at around 833 ft above sea level at "little bottoms" trail only to climb to the ridge in about 2 miles up to 1051 ft above sea level. That pretty much means that we hiked straight up for a while. I'm not complaining, because what kind of a trip would it be if it wasn't at least a little tough? However, comparatively speaking, this trip was nothing compared to some trails i've hiked in the past.  We hiked on through to camp site 17. This was our home away from home for the weekend. I will admit that backpacking through the Smoky Mountains is a bit of an adrenaline rush for me due to the large black bear population. Did you know that there are 2 black bear for every square mile in the Smokys? Yeah, that is a lot of bear. So, I have to be honest and admit that the thought of a bear encounter is constantly on my mind while hiking. In addition to the unnerving potential of being mauled by a bear, I have had a bear encounter before. It was minimal, but still a little shaking. To top it all off, the camp site we were staying at was under watch and was just opened back up because they had had high bear activity. Anyway, we arrived at camp 17 and spent a wonderful night talking, laughing and listening to Jacob Harris rant on and on about his new motorcycle that awaited him in Chattanooga, TN. Truthfully, we couldn't of asked for a better night. Well, then morning came and so did the rain. We left our camp site to do a little day hiking. For those of you who are backpacking illiterate, allow me to explain the terminology.  There is a drastic difference in day hiking and hiking through. Day hiking pretty much means that we have set up a base camp (stationary camp) and have left it and walked freely (without packs) through the woods to check out the sites. Through hiking means that you get up in the morning and pack everything up and hike all day to another camp site.

 Before we set out on our journey to Abrams Falls, we assembled together for prayer. We spent time asking God to protect us from bear and keep away the rain. Well, we were 1 for 2. No one got eaten by a bear, but the rain began to fall shortly after our prayer. The bible says that the prayers of a righteous man avails much. I guess none of us were righteous enough to keep away the bears and the rain, but keeping the bears away is just fine with me. Thank you Lord. Anyway, we hiked through the rain to Abrams Falls (thats the image you see on this blog), took some pictures and then began our hike back to base camp. The rain continued and what would usually turn into a pretty miserable time ended up being a wonderful experience. We had hot enough coals from the previous night so starting a fire in the middle of rain was no problem at all. We literally threw sticks on there and there was fire. We sat, talked, laughed and enjoyed each others company as the scattered showers past through the mountains. Thankfully, it never rained that hard so we all stayed dry the entire time. Eventually night time came and it was time to turn in. We slept well and got up at the crack of dawn, packed up our stuff and hit the trail. We hiked out and headed to crackle barrel which is food I believe they will serve in heaven. All in all, it was a great trip. I just felt selfish to have so much fun and not tell you about it. Anyway, take are and God bless.