But the stories have just begun! 

So it is true that this trip might be complete, and everyone is back in their homes, all warm and comfortable.  But a trip isn’t only defined by “Did I reach my destination?” but also by “What happened along the way?”.

So, with that being stated… I pose a question to all of my weekend warriors out there… What happened on this trip? What were your favorite moments? Will you be back?

Since our trip had 9 sets of eyes viewing the trip, I figured that I would share a quick story of the trip, from my eyes…  My trip had only one purpose to it, and that was getting to the summit.  Mt Mitchell is the first of 40 peaks in North Carolina that I will summit in the next few years.   So with keeping that in mind, I really wanted to arrive at the camp during the night.  Just so that I could give my legs  a little bit of rest before continuing up to the top.  {With over 3,400 feet of elevation gain and only 5.6 miles of trail to hike, getting to the summit and back down to the camp in one day would have been very difficult.}  Kevin, Chadd, Chad, Tyler and myself started towards camp around 11, and through a unfortunate turn of events Chadd turned back.  The rest of us pushed on and walked into camp around 2 in the morning.  I for one was very happy to be able to set up camp and get a good nights rest. 

Upon waking up the next morning, to a very chilly but pleasant day, I was ready to start towards to summit, and after a little bit of warming up and gear changes we started towards our destination.  John, Tyler, Chad, Kevin, Melissa, and myself started on the hike, and roughly half way up the mountain the sky was still blue, with a light breeze in the air.  Sure its cold, but it is winter.  This is the point when Kevin and Melissa decided to head back down the mountain and back towards camp.  John, Chad, Tyler and I pushed forward, splitting off into two groups. 

Trees about 200 yards from the summit.

John and Chad definately were moving a lot quicker than I was, so they moved forward, leaving Tyler and myself about 100 feet behind them the rest of the way up.   At about a quarter of a mile left in the hike, the sky started to change to cloudy and the wind started to really blow. 

We arrived at the summit at 3:30 and found out that the weather was hovering around 2° with a wind gusting near 40 mph (that puts the wind chill near -20).  So to put it mildly, it was COLD.  But I had achieved the goal that I was there for,

At the summit of Mt Mitchell

well at least half of the goal that I was there for.  The thing with hiking to a destination, isn’t just reaching that point, but also getting back to where you start from.  We stayed at the summit for only a short while before heading back down the mountain…

It was after arriving at the mountain when I had any type of major discomfort on the trip, I think it was caused by not eating enough throughout the day.  But just after reaching camp, my body temperature began to drop.  Kevin was nice enough to heat up some water for me and then after I got some warm food in my system I was good to go again.  Chad, Tyler, and I decided to get into our bags early that night and were in bed by 7:30.

Morning came and Chad, Tyler, Kevin and I decided that we wanted to have breakfast at Waffle House, instead of eating at camp.  So we gathered up our gear and hit the trail around 9am.  The hike was rather uneventful, the sun was shining and the wind was light as we followed the trail down to the cars.  After a little bit of packing and a couple more pictures, we decided to drive to Waffle House, have a nice breakfast and then finished the trip home. 

So now to answer my three questions… 1) What happened on this trip?  I was able to summit Mt Mitchell in the winter.  2) What were my favorite moments? They would have to be spending time with some great friends and learning more about myself.  3) Will I be back? I haven’t fully decided… I might but I might not.  After all there are 39 more peaks for me to summit.