We started our St Patrick’s  day with frozen socks and shoes.

I normally keep them in the sleeping bag, but today would bring us out of the Smokies and I had a dry pair in the pack so I left them out.

The shoes were another story.  They were too frozen to get my whole foot into, so I had to sit on them for about 30 minutes while packing and eating. Eventually, they warmed up enough to become flexible and put on.

Today we had an 18 mile hike that would take us out of the Smokies (and eventually the snow) down to lower elevations and the Standing Bear Farm Hostel.

Sunshine got an early start, leaving Seeker and I to play catch up (we wouldn’t see her again until the Hostel)

The trail started off cold and snowy much like the day before.  However as we began losing elevation over the first 5 miles, the snow started to slowly disappear from the tree tops and eventually the trail.  Leaving behind a sloppy slushy mess to hike through.

After stopping for lunch, we ended up hiking with Bear Spray, (so named, after accidentally setting off a canister of bear spray early on in his trip, shooting himself in the face on the process)

About half way through the day, I found an inhaler lying on the side of the trail.  There had been a few day hikers around, so I propped it up on a stick leaving over the trail with the hopes that it would catch the owners eye.

About 10 miles or so info the day, we ran into some trail magic, it was a St Patrick’s day miracle! Someone had left cans of beer on the trail sign.

It provided a much needed morale boost, as we hit the last 8 miles of the day.

The trail continued to get lower and we eventually ran out of snow.

It began raining off and on, with a frequency that lined up almost perfectly to us putting on and taking off our rain gear.

Towards the end of the day, we came down a hill and passed the thru hikers permit box, marking the start / end of the Smokies! Our week long ordeal had finally come to an end (although we still had several miles of trail to make it to the Hostel)

The trail gave us a couple more small climbs before dumping us out on a road that we followed to pass Interstate 40.

We arrived at the Hostel to find Sunshine and several other hikers already enjoying pizza and beer in the small hiker kitchen (that oddly enough had Sombreros on the ceiling! )

We are going to stay the night, do laundry/shower in the morning, then head back to the trail. Only a couple days away from Hot Springs!