Had a great time camping over the weekend w/ Midnight, Oculus, Rap, Critter, and our S/Os.

I think the most memorable moment was rapelling off a cliff behind the Lodge on Monte Sano, during a wedding. The wedding guests were probably distracted by Critter when he harnessed up and jumped off the cliff directly behind where the bride and groom were standing. As we hiked back to camp, I pointed out that they may have been annoyed by our presence, to which Midnight said, "If you're having an outdoor wedding on top of a mountain, you have to be prepared. You might see a bird shit, and you might see someone rapelling off a cliff."

We followed up the rapelling with some rock climbing, using the top-rope belay method for safety. My leg cramped up half-way to the top (I still made it, somehow), Midnight employed the never-before-seen "knee method", and forty7after required the belay-er plus 3 of us to let her down after her climb.

I went this past weekend for backpacking trip this past weekend and I thought I would share a little bit of my experience with you. The trip was through a portion of the Appalachian Trail in the Smoky Mountains, near Gatlinburg.

For those of you who don't know, The Appalachian Trail (A.T.) is 2,175 miles long and stretches through 14 states from Maine to Georgia. It was conceived in 1921 and completed in 1937.

I had never been on the AT, myself. Just FYI, one of the more prestigious achievements in Boy Scouts, unrelated to rank, is the "50 miler" patch, which is earned by traversing 50+ miles through the wilderness by land or water. When I was in scouts (about 12 years ago), some of my troop hiked part of the AT, some canoed the Elk river. I had gone the water route, so I was looking forward to the experience of the AT.