Hi Everyone,

Well I have lots of news, kind of. Last weekend was Fall Break so we didnt have class on Thurs or Fri. Emily and I decided to go on a backpacking trip with Outdoor Adventures on campus. Bascially we were going to be in the mountains for 4 days with no showers, bathrooms or anything...backpacking 25 miles!! (which is around 40kms). We thought we were going to die :P lol Well I thought I was coz I am so unfit!!

So on Wednesday last week we had our pack checks...we had gotten the backpacks on Monday and they were almost as big as us!!! lol But after getting everything approved we left all our stuff there.

We left bright and early on Thursday morning...8am! lol Emily and I slept most the way to the mountain. Arriving at around 2.30 but not after a stop at Bojanglesm southern fast food :P, we got everything organised and had lunch at the rangers station. We all piled back into the vans and drove to the top of the mountain were were dropped the other group off. After coming back down the mountains an parking in some picnic area we started on the hike.

The first day wasnt too bad, quite flat but we were werent used to the backpacks so they hurt quite a bit! It was getting quite late and dark so were thinking of stopping for the night...and then the track dissapeared! We had passed a crossing with another track about 10 mins before that so we walked back to their and decided to walk down that track and found a nice camping spot for the night. But we didnt exactly know were we were! By that time it was dark so we set up our tents and had our crunchy chicken rice for dinner. We added water the the rice but it just didnt seem to want to cook properly :P

That night Emily and I dicovered we were sleeping in spider valley...I swear there was about 4 spiders in our tent, and about 10 on it when we got up the next morning! It was really scary :P The next morning after breakfat we hit the trail at 9.30. After having discovered where we were ( we had taken the wrong track on that last turn) we continued back to where we had made the mistake and started on the right trail. That trail was all uphill! So it was a tiring start to the morning. Basically we walked all day only stopping for lunch and a couple of water breaks. That night we decided to sleep in one of the shelters along the hiking track and that saved us having to put the tents up and that. Dinner was much better tonight and we also managed to get there before dark. Tonight was pasta...it was actually really yummy!! And that said we were in bed by 7.30 :P

The next morning it was an early start at around 8:30 on the trail. Today was by far the hardest day on the trip! It was seriously all uphill. We started on this one mountain about halfway through the morning and it took us about 2 hours of slow uphill walking to finally make it to the top!! Me and Bonnie, one of the other girls on the trip kept thinking we were almost at the top and it just kept going. So good to finally make it to the top!! But when we finally reached the top it was so misty we could barely see off the edge of the mountain...so no views for us! Melissa one of our guides discovered that we had climbed 2000 feet in elevation thanks to that mountain!

It was then a quick walk to another shelter where we stopped for lunch and filled up our water bottles from a natural spring. The afternoon was filled with lots more walking. And then we stopped at around 5.30 to fill up water again. We were trying to find a place to camp for the night, we could have stayed at the waterfall but there wasnt that much room so we continued up the mountain a little more and founfd this clearing right on this ridge on the edge of the mountain, it was pretty cool!. It was freezing though since it was so high! We slept that night at 6000 feet above see level which was pretty cool!

The next morning was sooo cold! We were all wearing all the clothes we had brought and it was so misty up on that mountain. We were literally up in the clouds! But after 20mins of walking we were all stripping off all the layers as it is so hot walking! After completely a couple more miles of walking it was a race against time to get back in time to meet the other group! We had a choice...could either walk up and down 3 more mountains or we could walk along the parkway (the road!). Quess what we chose? The road haha. We walked into the carpark with 2 minutes to spare! It was such a good feeling to be finally finished! That last couple of hours was such a struggle, we were all tired and hurting but we did it!!

We dicovered that the other group had changed their course and did a shorter and easier one! But it felt good to have achieved so much in just a weekend! After that we had lunch and drove back to Raleigh arriving back to a nice shower and warm bed!

x