Hiking the Appalachian Trail: Week 5 Thru-Hike Journal

Last updated on July 21st, 2025 at 09:11 am

Thinking about an Appalachian Trail thru-hike? Or maybe you’re just looking to get an idea of what it’s like? Then you’ve come to the right place!

Hi! I’m Cindy. In 2022, my husband, Barrett, and I completed an Appalachian Trail thru-hike! 🥳

I journaled daily while on trail and plan to have our entire AT thru-hike tale up on this website for anyone who may be interested in reading it!

🔗 If you arrived here from another site but would like to start at the beginning, with week one 👉 click here.

🔗 And to see all the weekly journals in one spot 👉 click here.

Just know that if you choose to do an AT thru-hike, you’ll be in for an incredible adventure!

Also, if you know us as flip-flop thru-hikers, it should be noted that we didn’t know at this point that we would become flip-floppers. When we started, we had conducted months of research and chose to begin our Appalachian Trail hike NOBO, in Georgia, in April.

(We now know that starting as Flip Floppers or in March would have fit us better. But that’s for a later post.)

Just know when picking a route to hike the Appalachian Trail, you can always change it up along the way!

👉 Click here for tips on figuring out where and when would be the best start for you. 👈
👉 And click here for advice on male and female thru-hiking gear. 👈

Alrighty! Week five!

Week 5 of our Appalachian Trail thru-hike took us through the heart of the Smokies—complete with moody fog, rain-soaked trails, breathtaking views, and cozy tent nights. From reconnecting with my mom in Gatlinburg to adrenaline-filled wildlife encounters and weathering Appalachian thunderstorms, this stretch reminded us how wild, beautiful, and unpredictable life on the trail can be.

Curious what it’s actually like to spend months hiking the Appalachian Trail? Well, here’s week five:

Day 29

May 3, 2022

I’m going to whittle down our time in our Gatlinburg vacation rental to the basics.

We had a few drinks and some great food (including two of my favorite meals on Earth: Volcano Nachos (mentioned at the end of week 4) and Crockett’s Breakfast Camp 😻):

Barrett weighed his garbage:

We resupplied (both from local stores and the tubs of food and supplies we left behind with my mom):

We also had a lengthy visit at an REI with extremely friendly staff, hit up one other gear store, did our laundry, and managed to squeeze in a small amount of rest and relaxation time.

Also, some fellow thru-hikers (Limpy and Gimpy) came over and did some laundry. We shared stories and played pool for a few hours.

It was lovely to chat and relax with some new friends from the trail. They beat us at pool, but we still had a great time. 😹

Last but not least, we got to spend some quality time with my mom:

✔️ Length: 0 miles

Day 30

May 4, 2022

The time in Gatlinburg went by way too fast. This is now another time I really wanted to stay longer, but Barrett convinced me we needed to be on our way.

Once again, I am thrilled that we live in this area and can easily return to visit these fantastic spots in the future.

We woke up and left the Airbnb relatively late. Ten minutes before the 10 am check-out time, to be precise. Bye-bye, lovely bed!

We drove back up to reconnect with the trail at Kuwohi (known as Clingmans Dome in 2022). As we drove up, the sunny, warm Gatlinburg day gave way to a fully engulfed atmosphere of fog and mist. We put on all our rain gear, thinking it would rain, but it never really did.

We returned to the trail connection at 11:40 am. I’m fairly certain it was our latest start ever.

The plan for today was that Mom would slackpack us for the first 7.8 miles, then we would meet at Newfound Gap, get all our stuff, and then hike another 3.1 miles to the evening’s shelter area.

On today’s hike, we were back in the pine trees all day again, which we both love! There was one portion where the trees were all pretty dead, and some trees were even blood-red, covered in moss, with patches of red poking out.

The creepy whistling bird mentioned in past journals also returned during this time. But this one had a friend completing the whistle back to him, and suddenly, he wasn’t so scary anymore.

Later in the hike, the trees came back to life, remaining so until the end of the day.

We also hiked through what was sort of a hog containment zone.

They are non-native to the park and cause significant habitat destruction. You can read more about why wildlife managers are trying to control their population here.

Mom did Trail Magic for a bit at Newfound Gap. During her Trail Magic time, she met many interesting AT thru-hiker characters. Then, when everything she was handing out was gone, she hiked Southbound to meet up with us and walk with us for one mile.

When all three of us got to Newfound Gap, we chatted with more hikers for a while.

One of the thru-hikers my mom met was Gandolph, an awesome, older, retired man with a long beard who hikes with only one pole, whom we’ve been hiking at the same pace with for a while.

He’s hiking to Maine, buying a sailboat, and then sailing to Guatemala.

After chatting with hikers, we said our goodbyes to my mom, repacked all our heavy gear into our packs, and carried on for the last 3.1 miles of the day.

We saw many tiny, cute animals on today’s hike, which always brings extra joy to the experience. Lots of little birdies, a field mouse who made eye contact with us and bolted, and many short, red, bushy squirrels.

We arrived at the shelter area late, around 7:30 pm, and spent the preceding 60 minutes scrambling to get everything set up, filter water, feed ourselves, and clean up before sunset.

✔️ Length: 10.9 AT miles
✔️ Total Ascent: 2332′
✔️ Total Descent: 2948′
✔️ Total Grade: 484’/mi

Also, funny enough, we discovered that we had essentially walked at the same pace, whether our packs were light or heavy.

The slackpacking didn’t really make us faster at all (although the trail was wet and slippy in the morning).

Day 31

May 5, 2022

Today we carry on. We’re shooting for 12.6 miles.

We woke up late due to the late arrival the previous evening. There were multiple deer outside our tent in the morning.

Closer to the privy, I saw three to four of them chasing each other around in circles in the woods. It was adorable.

It was a stunningly beautiful day in the Smokies. We spent the entire day hiking along rocky terrain and roots high up on the side of the mountains. The hike was full of multiple viewpoints, including Charlie’s Bunion:

Ever since Derrick Knob, a few days ago, the scenery has been amazing.

Also, the pine smell has been strong ever since getting into higher elevation, but today took the cake.

Speaking of cake, we also ran into Birthday Girl! (She’s incredible, you can read more about her here.)

It was warm, sunny, and the air was minimally humid. The weather, along with the sight of pine trees and mountains all day, made it almost feel like Colorado.

We saw a few spots where trees rooted in shale had become too heavy and finally fell over, taking the entire ground with them and leaving behind a tall pile of rocks hidden underneath.

And I’m just going to throw in a few more pictures because the views on this day were truly beautiful. 😻

Even though we found out yesterday that we’re hiking at similar speeds (depending on the terrain) with or without the full packs, my shoulders and knees certainly felt different yesterday. They definitely appreciated the 8-mile break the day before.

There was also no water along the hike today.

We stopped early at a shelter with water that was beautifully tucked down into a mountain crevice full of trees and flowers. The late start yesterday threw us off, so we decided to call it early, go to bed, and then wake up early tomorrow and try to get at it not long after sunrise.

Sleep here was great! And it was even warm enough to finally use my convert sleeping quilt as a quilt instead of a sleeping bag!

✔️ Length: 7.8 miles
✔️ Total Ascent: 1467′
✔️ Total Descent: 2105′
✔️ Total Grade: 459’/mi

Day 32

May 6, 2022

As was the case yesterday, there’s supposed to be minimal water along today’s hike. It did, however, thunderstorm last night, so who knows? Maybe that’ll be different today.

This was a day of long miles and, on and off again, lightning, thunder, and rainstorms. And except for a few moments when we wondered what the hell it was we were doing, we did a pretty good job of making the most of it.

Even though I ordinarily love the sun (I’m reasonably sure I’m both mentally and physically solar-powered), the trail has helped me develop a new appreciation for gloomy days. The pack weight is more bearable on gray days because I’m not sweating bullets. It doesn’t take too much sun for it to feel heavier for some reason.

I’m not gonna lie; the first 5 miles today felt very long. We were slowly getting progressively soaked.

It rained at least three different times throughout the day. Two storms came with thunder and lightning, but luckily, we were always about 5-7 miles away from where the lightning was striking.

Throughout the day, we transitioned between being sort of dry, soaked, almost dry, and then soaked again.

The evolution of the storms was wild. It was sprinkling first. And then giant gusts of wind would come in and bring in a new storm, and then a few miles down the way, massive gusts would come in and dissipate the storm.

The same goes for views; we’d reach a viewpoint and wait a few moments, and sometimes it’d briefly open up, allowing us to see everything. That was very cool.

But then, at other times, giant black Dementor-resembling clouds would show up and bring thunder with them, and you would want to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible, lol.

Some random notes from the day:

• A lot of the day consisted of huge mossy hills and pine tree tunnels.
• When you’ve been hiking for a long time and are soaked, all the knobs on the trees start to look like animal faces.
• We saw the longest red salamander we’ve ever seen! We would guess 6″.
• We later saw two more grey salamanders (pictured below) hanging out in a water source and flipping each other with water using their tails.
• During the height of the final storm of the day, we saw an extremely tiny mouse running for its life erratically across the trail.

We hiked two miles at what was probably the fastest pace we’ve ever maintained with the packs, a 22-minute and a 24-minute mile.

That 22-minute mile was because we were on a somewhat open ridge when it started thundering and lightning again.

We were about 2 miles from the shelter, and we were on a mission to get the hell out of there and move downward to more cover.

Once we finally arrived at the shelter, we chose to wait out the rain before setting up our tent, and somehow, miraculously, still found a great spot.

It took me until about midnight for my body to warm up, but it finally did.

✔️ Length: 13.4 AT miles (Alltrails said 14.3 overall)
✔️ Total Ascent: 2897′
✔️ Total Descent: 3466′
✔️ Total Grade: 475’/mi

Day 33

May 7, 2022

It’s still raining, but today we exit the Smokies!

The storms were so crazy the previous day that much of the trail had turned into a river we were sludging through.

This day started like that, too, but evolved into mostly a slightly mushy, muddy trail. It never rained too heavily today. It mostly switched back and forth between light rain and mist all day, all the way until bedtime.

We passed a group from Knoxville doing trail maintenance. As we walked by them, I experienced another gem of a rainy day fly-by quote. He said, “Good day to be a duck.”

The last handful of miles in the National Park were very green, full of rhododendron and rope vine-like trees.

It had an almost jungle-y feel.

We descended into a lush green forest floor, listening to birdsong all day, as we tried to decide if the storm was truly over.

We exited the National Park with great excitement. Barrett was pumped and wanted to document it; I agreed, despite feeling as close to a wet dog as I had ever felt before.

Overall, we were amazed by the weather we received while in the Smokies. We’d heard horror stories, but, except for the storms at the end, we experienced fantastic weather with clear skies and open views while in the park.

It was rather remarkable how quickly the scenery changed after we left the park. We hiked into what I consider a more traditional forest full of the typical American trees and weeds.

There was a canopy of maples mixed with other very tall trees, as well as many thin little trees. (I wish I knew the names of all the trees! I’m going to start googling them more when there’s service on the trail, but there hasn’t been much lately.)

We also saw both mountain laurel and rhododendron, both of which were close to blooming.

A stream appeared that we walked alongside and crossed multiple times. It widened and turned into numerous gushing waterfalls down the path.

This area was beautiful in a whole different way from the National Park.

We exited that area, crossed above the Pigeon River, and then under I-40 highway, before coming to a very tall and sketchy staircase.

We also encountered an area where trees had fallen across the trail. Here’s what hiking the trail looks like when that happens:

I started to feel pretty worn down during the last couple of miles to Standing Bear hostel. I had called ahead, and there were no rooms available due to the storm, so we’d be tenting. So, I didn’t feel overly excited to be headed there.

During my moment of tiredness, I turned a corner and found myself face-to-face with a black bear, approximately 10 to 15 feet away, standing on a log. We’ve run across a handful of black bears in our lives, but every time we’ve seen one, they saw us first, and we’re running away. This one was not.

I said, “Bear Barrett, Bear Bear Bear Bear,” as fast as humanly possible. (I think the repetition was because his name is so similar. I didn’t want him to be confused.) 😹

Once I said all that, the bear took off, maybe another 30-50 feet, and hung out further down in the woods.

We were excited to have seen him; the experience was exhilarating, and I was now full of adrenaline as we approached our hostel!

Once we got there, it turned out they DID have an indoor bed for two available in a cabin with three others.

We swooped it up and then went on to enjoy an evening of beef and bean burritos, margaritas, and beer with new and old trail friends!

Fun was had by all. Maybe even a bit too much fun. But it was nice, and we slept dry that evening.

✔️ Length: 10.4 Trail Miles
✔️ Total Ascent: 1470′
✔️ Total Descent: 4455′
✔️ Total Grade: 568’/mi

Day 34

May 8, 2022

I woke up feeling ROUGH from the three 16 oz 10% alcohol canned margaritas and 1 1/2 XXL bean and beef burritos I had enjoyed the night before. Those drinks were definitely not white claws… Also, they were definitely the most I’ve drunk on the trail so far.

After some time, I finally mustered up the energy for a shower, which was wonderful.

We then continued to wash all our clothes in a sink using a washboard, threw them in a centrifuge to get them mostly dry, and then finished them off for 5 minutes in a dryer.

We also resupplied our food, which had some pretty weird and straight-up bad options. It’s going to be three days of fueling off a lot of chips and potatoes for me.

And then, by noonish, we were out of there!

We weren’t going very far. The mission was to simply put some distance between us and that hostel so we couldn’t spend any more of our money there.

There was a lot of ascent out of this spot, just as there always seems to be out of most resupply places.

The forest was very green. We saw a wide variety of flowers along the way, including numerous blooming trilliums, flame azaleas, and even some of the first mountain laurels opening up.

We finally got to the top, which was a bald with a tower. I’ve loved the towers and was excited, but this one was actually an FAA tower, so there was nothing to climb up there.

We hiked a bit further and found a fantastic, tiny campsite up on the bald, complete with a fire pit and a stunning view of all the mountains ahead.

We decided this was the spot, set up camp, made food, enjoyed the view, and went to bed.

It was the first time on the trail without other tents around!

✔️ Length: 4.7 Trail Miles
✔️ Total Ascent: 2622′
✔️ Total Descent: 98′
✔️ Total Grade: 584’/mi

Day 35

May 9, 2022

We woke up to a lot of fog covering all the mountains.

But by the time we were ready to leave, it had passed.

We both woke up fine, but Barrett disappeared to use the bathroom and returned with some pretty bad back pain that never went away all day. I felt for the guy; he looked genuinely miserable at times throughout the day, but he toughed it out.

It was another exceptionally green day, with a multitude of wildflowers. At one point, there were fairly big mossy trees, and while they wouldn’t compare to the redwoods in size, they reminded us of them.

Then it reverted to your typical forest. Mayapple was everywhere on the forest floor, getting a bit taller each day.

Barrett took the time to photograph all the little things during this day. He’s really enjoying the iPhone’s macro lens.

We also saw a snake, toad, and salamander along the trail today. Additionally, we came across a cooler full of LaCroix trail magic, which was greatly appreciated, as it was a warm day with limited water options available along the trail.

After chugging those, we hiked up to Max Patch!

We were rewarded with a beautifully clear day!

So many mountains!

In the 360-degree view Max Patch provided, we could see the Smokies behind us as well as all of the hills that lay ahead of us.

Coming out of that, there were what I believe to be birch trees (white bark and colorful leaves). It felt like fall for a moment.

There’s a camping ban on Max Patch because it’s so popular, and they’re attempting to revitalize the area. So, we went far enough away from there, and then into a swampy spot with tangled rhododendron that felt more like Georgia or Florida.

Again, we found a nice little camp spot to hunker down for the night, complete with a fire pit and a nearby water source, and called it a day. We could hear the stream in the distance. One of the best tent sleeps I’ve ever had.

✔️ Length: 10.6 Trail Miles
✔️ Total Ascent: 2651′
✔️ Total Descent: 2813′
✔️ Total Grade: 517’/mi

Conclusion: Week Five of our AT Thru Hike

Week 5 on the Appalachian Trail carried us through the heart of the Smokies, where the miles brought a mix of misty mornings, rain-slicked paths, sweeping vistas, and memorable nights in our tent. From reconnecting with my mom in Gatlinburg to navigating wildlife encounters and mountain storms, this stretch reminded us just how raw, beautiful, and surprising life on the trail can be.