Day 17

Miles: 17.2
Total Miles: 201.0

Dave, Kelley, and I had something to prove after being so limited by the weather yesterday. We have a nice and relatively easy hike up to Rocky Top where the view was incredible on such a surprisingly clear day. The trail changed into a worn groove through grassy fields with sparse trees and tons of rocks. We did a lot of ridge walking to a shelter at about 12 miles in by 5 pm. After getting a little bit more food into our systems we decided to push on the extra 5 miles to the next shelter. I put my headphones in and cranked out about 3.5 miles per hour the entire way. The wind was picking up at night be the shelter was very nice, like all the Smokey shelters, and had plenty of room even with the presence of some section hikers.