It's a bit chilly up in the mountains

As it turned out the next morning we woke up to everything covered in ice. The zippers to our tents were frozen shut, the buckles to all our gear our frozen, and our food bags were frozen in the tree. Getting the food bags down was pretty funny, but taking tents down was painful on frozen fingers. 

Once we started walking we noticed how beautiful everything was covered in ice. Marly and I started singing "walking in a winter winderland" and stopped to take many pictures. It stayed really foggy unfortunately because we summits Blood Mt. our tallest peak so far of 4,458 ft! The climb up was not as difficult as I was preparing myself for, but goodness the climb down was rough. 2 miles of large rock steps down and jagged rocks going down switchbacks. I slowed down so much it got really cold and had to sing my way to the bottom where our first reapply at Neal's Gap was. 

Everyone was there hanging out in the large outdoor store. I got a new water filter and Marly got some gloves. Just another 3 miles to our campsite and a welcome 8 pm bedtime. 

We woke up the next day to the sum shining!!! What a beautiful day to be outside hiking. The walk was not too bad but my one knee and leg were starting to really hurt me from the descent the day before from Blood mt. It was a painful climb down the mountain to the next campsite, but as I was walking I was keeping my spirits up by singing and did not notice another hiker behind me. When I finally realized he was there he thought it was so great! He decided that my trail name should be Canary because I was singing nicely like a canary. 

The next mornings walk was super quick and easy and we had 7 miles down by 12. Only 2.4 more to Unicoi gap where we got picked up by a shuttle and taken to Hiawassee. A shower, clean clothes, Mexican food and a night sleep in a real bed. Glory hallelujah!