Julie and I are hiking the Appalachian Trail in the US from Springer Mt, Georgia, to Mt Katahdin, Maine, in the north, a distance of almost 2,200 miles (3,540 km). Our journey will start in early May 2023 and is expected to take about five months. We will be mostly camping, carrying 3-5 days of supplies to get us between resupply points, where we will be staying in hostels/hotels/motels where we can. I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail back in 1986 so it will be interesting to see how much has changed and how much it has stayed the same.

Appalachian Trail - Day 011 - Nantahala Outdoor Center to Cody Gap

Day: 011

Date: Friday, 05 May 2023

Start:  Nantahala Outdoor Centre (AT Mile 136.9)

Finish:  Cody Gap (AT Mile 156.0)

Daily Kilometres:  32.0

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  264.7

Weather:  Mild and mostly overcast

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Honey Buns

  Lunch:  Cheese & ham roll/Chicken Caesar wrap

  Dinner:  Soup & dehydrated meals

Aches:  Dave - tired with a few niggles; Julie - nothing to report

Highlight:  Calm evening in a beautiful campsite in Cody Gap, which we have all to ourselves, with birds singing, woodpeckers tapping and owls hooting.

Lowlight:  None really

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We left the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) just before 7:00am after a night disturbed by the seventh graders billetted in the room next door who talked audibly late into the night.


Our packs weighed pretty much the same, but our wallets were much lighter after a day at the NOC..


Today was the day of the Stecoahs, a small mountain range along whose spine we walked most of the day, after climbing over 3,000’ from the NOC to get there.  It is renowned as one of the tougher sections of the AT and it did not disappoint.  There were many rocky knolls with very sharp technical ascents and descents along with occasional boulder-hopping and steep drop-offs, sometimes on both sides.  At some points the spine was just five metres wide, while at other times we walked along a broad ridge and it felt like a lost plateau that we had all to ourselves.


In fact, despite the scores of AT Thru-hikers we saw at the NOC yesterday, we only saw one on the trail today, plus a few other hikers, although a group of four young thru-hikers did pass through Cody Gap as we were setting up camp.


Some of the knolls did offer great views and there were again abundant wildflowers along the way with occasional birdlife and butterflies.  Julie did see a rabbit, but we have been surprised at how little widlife we have seen on our hike so far.  Tomorrow we get into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and things may change.  We need a permit to go through there and since getting it we have received messages warning of bear activity at one of the shelters.


All in all it was a tough but satisfying day capped off by a nice campsite which we found by the trail around 6:30pm.
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