THE END

The last three days of my thru hike were great! Thursday night I stayed at Tray Mountain Shelter. I was so happy to have clear, sunny weather that I didn't much care about the high winds blowing through all night. There was a nice couple tenting there as well. We chated around the fire most of the evening, and they gave me part of a Subway sandwich! People are so kind on the trail! There was also a great view that night off to the East from Tray Mountain. The stars were out, and the sunset was gorgeous.



Friday was really fun. I hiked from Tray Mtn to Neels Gap and the famous Walasi-Yi Center. The Walasi is a historic building with an outfitter, hostel and other stuff in it, and the people who run it are great. Pirate, who has been living and hiking the trail for close to 19 years now is a great old man that runs the place. Lumpy is the handyman around there, and talks just like larry the cable guy but better. Lastly there is Richard, who got emphazema at 19 and runs the cash register. I stayed up a little later that night hanging out with everyone. The other two in the hostel went to bed early, and after they were asleep the fellows came down and gave me beer and popcorn. Then we had "Fight Night." They didn't have fight night last friday because "there were a bunch of nerds" there. I could only guess what it was when Pirate pulled out the flower vase. He came in from the next room holding two separte jars of beta fish. So, lumpy rang a bell and fight night began. Pirate poured both beta fish into the same vase, and they started hollarin and slapping money on the table betting on the blue one or the red one. It was hilarious! The funniest part was their comments, especailly when they turned out to not do anything. Pirate goes "I seen em' on the youtube! They rip each uther up in bout 30 seconds." Anyway, that was a really fun night, and I was also glad to be indoors because it's getting pretty cold up in the mountains now.

Saturday I started the hike out of Neels Gap with Blood Mountain. Blood gets it's name from Native American History in the area. The top had great views, and I ended up running into a guy from my business fraternity at UT uptop! Here is a picture from the top. Do you see that brown line in the sky? Air pollution from Atlanta! Can you believe that! Blood Mtn. is 70 miles by road from Atlanta.



At Woody Gap, Saturday, I was eating lunch when another hiker walked up to my picnic table and started talking to me. He was finishing up a thru-hike too. His name was Ballhawk, and we had a great time that night at Hawk Mountain Shelter reminescing about the AT! It was great to spend the last night with another thru. We talked about all the hostels, trail towns, people and everything else trail related until late into the night.

Sunday morning! Time to finish the Appalachian Trail. Saturday afternoon I had come to peace with a lot of things in my head. I had some anxiety about finishing, and transitioning into the next phase of life. Stress is something I haven't really had to deal with at all since beginning the trail, so it was a little hard to manage. I got over it all quickly though. There have been several times during my hike that I have come to tears thinking about being done. The summit was suprisingly a little anti-climatic though. My parents came, and we hiked the last mile together up to the summit! It was great to have them pick me up, and I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day.

At the top I yelled once, but only when prompted by Mom. It was just a really calm and quiet experience. I had pictured it being different, but when I got to the sign I just kinda stood there and stared. 'Wow it's all done now' I thought in my head. 'Time to move on to the next phase of life.' Don't get me wrong though, I was then and am still on cloud 9 from being done. It's just a different kind of cloud 9 than I've experience before. Maybe it hasn't all soaked in quite yet. After all, I did finish pretty quickly, but I think I came to peace with it all and had my own little celebrations all along the way. Dad said it well when we were driving back down from Springer. He said it just goes to show you that it's more about the journey than the destination.







Thank you so much for following my hike. Your comments, support and visits have enhance the entire experience so much for me, and I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate your interest! Thank you for letting me share the experience with yall. I hope you have enjoyed the blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it! This is something that I am going to keep doing as I make the move out West. Today I set up another blogspot that I will be posting on about my experiences out there. It's called Wyroaming, and I hope to make a post every week or two about whatever; job, interests, outdoor trips and whatever else. Thanks again, and let me know if you'd like me to blog about an aspect of the hike I didn't touch on.

THE END!

The Kid

www.wyroaming.blogspot.com