Sat, Dec 26 2020 - GSMNP, Gregory Bald after Christmas backpacking (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Nahid Participants: Nahid, Fay, Nikita, Chris Tripp, Andrey K

Write Up:
The trip started with strong and enthusiastic hikers at freezing temperature on the icy- snowy trail. The snow depth was about 2 inches in the beginning and increased hiking up to 10 inches on the Bald. The Creeks crossing on the way were deeper than we expected because of melting snow and was difficult to walk through due to icy rocks. Sometimes even we had to slide on icy downed tree/branches with our butt in order to cross deep creeks.

We needed to double up our energy and hiking through on deep snow. The difficulty of this winter backpacking was more than D5 but everybody did the great job. We had to setup the tent quickly when we arrived the campsite around sunset, then trying to gather woods, but all the woods were buried beneath snow by which gave us a tough time started the fire after trying several times. Therefore, everybody decided staying warm in the tents.

The weather turned out much better the next morning, and we boiled snow for the coffee/tea and for the drinking water before heading out back to our car. We had snow smashing for two miles, but it was getting easier hike out on the snow cover trails due to the weather got warmer, and snow depth started decreasing.

It was an awesome adventure, and the beautiful things of the trip was not the Gregory Bald we conquered, but ourselves.

Our new AOC member, Chris Tripp, is a strong experienced backpacker.

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