Appalachian Trail 50 mile hike

My biggest request besides come home safely was get a picture of the 4 of them! It's a rare thing for a Dad to get to take all his sons on a trip like this! Isn't Matts flower B.E.A.utiful?!

Aj's pack is as big as he is! 

I can't tell the days apart in the pictures because all 4 of them wore the same shirt the entire week!!

even in the middle of a 50 miler AJ has the energy to climb and hang! Thats my gymnast!

So the consensus is, it was exhausting. Kirk suggests it was harder then Philmont because they did in 5 days what Philmont did in 10. The nice thing about this trail is you are under the canopy most of the time so they really didn't get any sun tan. The bad thing is you are under the canopy the whole time so you don't really get to see the cool mountains you are passing and climbing. The 3 12year olds needed to sleep in a shelter they made to earn some badge and the night they had to do that was when they were camping in a bear sanctuary. Apparently there were a lot of bears, if any walked through the camp  everyone was to tired to wake up for thank goodness! they had a rough day where Matt dropped a knife his girlfriend gave him and he got so flustered he turned back and wouldn't even drop his pack. So Kirk and Connor dropped theirs and went back to find him. They walked a extra 4 miles that day on top of their 7. Connor got back to the camp laid down and passed out for the whole night! The last night it rained really hard and their final camp sight flooded so they had the drivers who drove up that night drive them to another spot. The final say they ran the Ocoee river in rafts and loved it. It is a cool river where the Olympics were held back sometime. It was by far everyones favorite part so it was a good move to have that be the final day! AJ says that was the best 10 miles! Matt and Connor spent a good portion of the river ride in the river since they couldn't stop pushing each other. their guide commented that she had never seen anyone swim through some of those rapids. Needless to say their bums hurt the next day from smacking into rocks, since you are supposed to float with your feet up so they don't get stuck. Overall they had a great time. I am just so relieved they are home safely!