Day 7.. hit 100th mile on AT, cold morning turned to beautiful day

My dad woke up at 4 AM to pee and did a little tent maintenance by removing snow off the roof. We went back to sleep and woke up with the sun. Our gloves from the day prior were frozen. We left our crocs outside and they were nearly buried in snow and ice. Although we did stay warm through the night by keeping our heads under the sleeping bag and having our full winter gear on, the morning was painfully cold as we got dressed and packed up. Once we got hiking, the sun slowly started to peak through the fog and beautifully lit the path ahead. We had some beautiful views with the mountain tops snow covered, and the trees with brine ice. Being from New England, we are used to this, but there was something different about hiking the Appalachian Trail in the South and seeing this Glorious winter morning. Shortly into our day, we got off trail to hit a 5000 footer summit, Standing Indian Mountain. It was not far off the trail. There wasn’t much of a view as it was still socked in on that side of the mountain, but still worth it. We continued trekking onward, and as we were losing elevation, we are also losing some of the snow and it started to warm up slightly. We started with our micro spikes until we dropped elevation and the snow was sticking to the micro spikes. It was chilly all day, but we felt blessed that the sun was out shining. This was only our second day in North Carolina and we loved it. The long switchbacks were gradual and lovely. It was really easy walking for most of the miles today which included a beautiful ridge trail named Timber Ridge. We hit 100 miles on the Appalachian Trail towards the end of our day. Just before this we went up an Albert Mountain fire tower for a spectacular view. We found a campsite at mile 18 of our day, settled in and ate what felt like a five star dinner, my dad had chicken Alfredo and I had chicken pesto pasta. We ended our night by FaceTiming our family and making a plan for my husband Ryan to meet us sometime in the Smokies or after.