My dad, his friend, and I left my house at 5:00 AM. We drove for about 2 hours to Fontana Dam. At Fontana Dam we got our bags on, and started our first hike in the Smoky Mountains. We were all refreshed and ready to go. To start off there was a huge hike up to a watch tower. In the beginning it was already strenuous. You could already feel the weight of the bag pulling you down, like your knees were buckling. At the top it was pleasurable though the view was amazing.

From there it was many ups and downs to our shelter. We went slow and easy, and took our time, since we had a lot of it. At the shelter we got set up and had chicken casserole, which didn’t taste too bad. After that we went to bed getting ready for tomorrow. The first day was an easy one, but from there it was just going to get harder.