So me and my brother took a 3 day, 22 mile backpacking trip through the Linville Gorge Wilderness. It was intense. Apparently choosing an advanced route for our first real backpacking trip was not the greatest of ideas. Not only did we get lost, but we completely lost the trail (to our defense, the trail was actually not established) and ended up high up on the side of a mountain shortly before dusk, with no where to camp. To add to that, we had been using Iodine tablets to purify the tributary water that we were drinking (we ran out of water the first day), which it turns out, if you drink large quantities of this water, it works against you, and makes you dehydrated. So there we are, on the side of the mountain, at night, with no trail, no decent water, no appetite, and absolutely no energy. Somehow, we found the connecting trail (if you can call it a trail), and continued on till we found a decent place to camp. And repeated this process for three days. All in all, in many places we climbed 1000ft or more in less than a mile, swam in the linville river rapids, bushwacked over mountains, forded a river with all our gear, nursed blisters, dehydration, and exhaustion, constantly swatted at the knats swarming at our sweaty heads, spewed up trail mix, hiked 12 hours straight, shared a 10×5 backing tent, and lost 10 pounds each. And if you ask me if I would do it again, the answer would be, Yes.

As expected, I carried my camera with me for the first half, but shortly after getting lost, it was tucked away in my pack. (I didn’t want it to get ruined while scrambling up and down mountains) Here are a few shots, I will put together a gallery at some point. Click HERE for a FULL gallery slideshow.