Day 3 - Tricorner Shelter to Kephart Shelter

<p>Today was/is/will be the longest day of our Smokies trip at about 15 miles.&nbsp; To get a start on the day we managed to get out of camp pretty early, with Rachel even hitting the trail by 7 to get a jump on the day and the rest of us jumping on around 8.&nbsp; We found the first five miles to be pretty mild.&nbsp; The only water source today was, unfortunately, half a mile off the trail at a shelter at about the five mile point.&nbsp; To save time, Jamie and Jonable ran down the hill with empty bottles to fill them up while Shannon brewed up some coffee.&nbsp; Mid-morning coffee!</p>
<p>We split up for most of the day, with Jamie and Jonable hiking ahead.&nbsp; They visited Charlie's Bunion which was a pretty neat jutting rock off of some schist cliffs. We all met up again for a late lunch at the junction of the AT and Grassy Branch Trail.&nbsp; Since we couldn't book one of our nights at a shelter on the AT we had to re-route off of the trail for the night and ended up hiking down (way down...) a beautiful valley.&nbsp; It was exciting to see lots of running water again and we were glad that Rachel, Laurens, and Jon all had a chance to see some different terrain (although the Smokies thus far have been quite beautiful, with lots of great ridge walks).</p>
<p>We were all super pumped when we got down here to the shelter, set in a great little spot a hundred feet or so from a bend in the river.&nbsp; And we have the place to ourselves!&nbsp; It is also the cleanest shelter we've been to, which makes since as it must be much less frequented.&nbsp; We're pretty happy to be able to just relax together.&nbsp; The temperature is also way higher down here, so we should be in for some pretty comfortable sleeping.&nbsp; OH, we've also had a pretty nice fire going all night, Jonable and Jamie found a good deal of driftwood in the river.</p>
<p>Overall a great day on the AT!!