The Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

You know you're a thru-hiker when... a perfect stranger becomes a good friend when they're trying to lighten their pack of food.

We hopped into the car for a ride from our motel back to the trail. On the way there, we were given an exhaustive list of things that could and would kill us in the Smokies. As we watched the car drive away we were certain that we were going to die a horrible death sometime in the next few days.

As it turned out the Smokies were not as terrifying as we were expecting. We never did see any bears or copperhead snakes. There were no freak snow storms and the water was safe drink.

We spent five very enjoyable days walking through the national park including our first pine forest and the tallest peak on the trail - Clingman's Dome (6600ish feet). We also had our first wildlife encounter of the trail (not including squirrels and smelly hikers). We saw a deer running lazily south down the AT towards us. Hunting is illegal in the national parks here so the animals are not afraid of humans so we were able to get to within a meter of the deer.

Due to the large number of bears in the park some of the shelters have a mesh cage on the front. It would be impossible for a bear to nibble on one of your limbs while you sleep. Unfortunately for us the shelters were all full so we had to put up our tent outside the shelter. Thin wire mesh may not seem like much when faced with a bear but it is a lot more comforting than a sheet of nylon.

The only other event worthy of note is that we did our first 20 mile day (32kms).