Easter on the Trail

It was just a normal morning...while cold and unmotivated, I packed up and ate breakfast. Today would be the first Easter I haven’t spend with my family. While it just felt like a normal day on the trail, it was also sad knowing I was missing out on time spent with my family back home on such a fun holiday.

I headed out for the day and only about an hour in I was walking into gap where there was a big trail magic breakfast set up. They had Bojangles biscuits, fruit, cookies, and Gatorade. Today’s magic was so unexpected since I didn’t think anyone would be out on Easter morning, but made me smile and made this Easter on trail a little extra special.

As I usually do, I spent almost a hour hanging out talking to all the people down at the trail magic. I knew I had a decent day ahead so I knew I had to keep going. The day was beautiful and I loved running into the day hikers out for an afternoon hike. I would stop and talk for way to long or even hike with them for a little bit.

I knew Daniel and T.O. were ahead of me and I figured there was no way I’d catch them after I had stopped and talked so much, but when I got to the top of Wesser Bald, there they were. The view from the tower was so gorgeous.

From the tower, there was about a 7 mile hike down into NOC. Daniel and I was trucking down the hill. On the way down, Daniel was renamed Shmorgishborg after the concoction he made for dinner last night.

Walking down into NOC was awesome. The river looked so cool and refreshing. The NOC is something I feel like we all talked about and it is so fun to actually be here. The outfitter only had 15 minutes before it closed, so I ran in to grab my resupply box. When I was about to go into the outfitter, I ran into Salamander, Burp, Ringer, & Chloe who I had met at the hostel in Franklin.

I had been talking about salad all day, so I got a huge salad for dinner. A guy in a truck gave Shmorgishborg, T.O., & I a ride to the hotel. We felt like we were in the amazing race trying to follow the instructions to check in since we were coming in later.

It was a pretty chill night as we just hung out, showered, ate my delicious salad, and called my family for Easter. It was definitely a different Easter than I was used to, but it also came with sweet simplicity and its own little blessings.