Southern Section opener

The day was so lovely yesterday that Artuna and I took a hike in the Southern section of the park on a very popular loop trail.  My camera battery was dead again so there are no pictures.  This camera is becoming so problematic that I'm going to return it to Nikon. 

We started at Jones Run parking lot and went down the Jones Run Trail next to wonderful waterfalls.  We ate lunch at the biggest one.  It was cool enough to wear wind pants and a wind jacket.  We joined the Doyles River Trail for the trip back up.  Another lovely and conversational brook with many waterfalls.  There was much less shade on the Doyles River Trail, due in part to dead trees and in part to lack of leaves.  Off came windpants and jacket.  There were lots of people on the Doyles' River Trail, including two groups and a couple of pairs of backpackers.  I wonder where they camp?  We stopped at the upper falls to enjoy the beauty and sounds of the falls.  One large tree had fallen across the trail blocking access to the "beach" closest to the falls but I snuck underneath it and found some shade near the pool.  Then I noticed that there are lots of dead trees around the stream.  Burned?  Killed by wooly adelgid?  Not clear but it looked like not a very safe place to be in a high wind.  There was no wind yesterday which made the sun even hotter.  We took a quick side trip to look at the Doyles River Cabin, which is situated perfectly and has a great view.  No one was there.  After slogging up to the parking lot (to complete the trail), we backtracked to the AT and took it going south.  We met a group of 8 people from Ohio who are collectively section hiking the A.T.  Some are close to finishing and some have over a thousand miles to go.  They are part of a hiking club and go out together, carpooling and staying in motels together.  An interesting way to section hike.  The final 3.4 miles on the AT was hot and seemed long.  Just as I was approaching the parking lot I met Bojangles and Tuna, two thru hikers from Texas and we had a nice chat about the trail.  They had six inches of snow a few days before and waited out the snow in a shelter.  Freaky weather. 

When I entered the trail in my database, I discovered that I had entered Jones Run and Doyles River Trails as one trail (because of the way it is written up in the guidebook).  I changed it to two trails in my database.  Making the total number of trails in the SNP 174, including the AT. 

Here are my thermometers to date: 

Almost 1/3 done!I've hit the 25% mark for total miles!  Yippee!