After hanging out with 100 mile views at Charlies Bunion we decide to continue on. Another short 6 mile day awaits us.
We start our hike over what are known as the Sawtooths. The climbs are nowhere near as difficult as the previous 2 days and we wind our way up and down what seems like the spine of the Smokies. The ridge winds back and forth alternating views of North Carolina and Tennessee. The hills fall away on either side, and often both. There is a light wind, and the temperature maybe reaches the mid seventies. Unlike the low nineties when we pull into Cosby.
I'm really getting my trail legs now. We lunch trailside with humus pita and kalamata olives, with distant views of Fontana Lake. We make the Peck's Corner Shelter early. Isaac and Angie are beat. In conversation it feels like Nolan, Ian and I are all itching to do another 5 miles. We relax visit, nap and lounge the evening away. I pick the brain of Haiku a retired gentleman who earlier this year completed a 4 week 350+ mile section hike of the AT.
We break camp early as we have a longer day. Ten miles and the beginning of our decent out of the high peaks. The first half of the trail is similar to yesterday. I break out ahead, then eventually pick up my poles and slowly walk along having a spiritual little respite in the flat mountain top woods.
After summiting Mt. Guyot the forests begin to change again from the the wooded tops to open balds filled with mountain laurels and berry bushes. A storm front quickly rolls in late in the day, and we don our rain gear and begin our decent. The rain pours down hard and at times turns into hail the size of dimes. The rain begins to slack as we reach campsite 29. We've summited the last of our 10 peaks, and I'm a little saddened as I've felt in the rain we've hurried along, and I haven't paid as much attention to our surroundings as I'd have liked.
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