Barefoot Hike To Preacher's Rock

Whitney and I decided to go on a short hike up to Preacher's Rock. We had been there before, so I had an idea of the terrain.

I decided to hike it barefoot. Why not? I run barefoot all the time. The first few minutes were tough, but after a few minutes everything becomes mechanical and dodging odd rocks is easy.

Along the way flowers flaunted themselves. My mom told me to keep a lookout for flowers, so we took some pictures for her. I believe they are Mountain Laurels and Flame Azalea. 

Once we made it to Preacher's Rock we decided to just keep walking since my dad mentioned a trail tree that was up ahead. After walking around confused and joking about there being no trail tree, it finally made its appearance. It was so cool!

This one is my favorite

After leaving this location, we started my RunKeeper(I doubled it back afterwords). It was pretty accurate except for a 5 mile flaw that was really easy to get rid of.

We took a side route and found a cool little camp site, purely out of boredom.

On the way back we passed two guys. One said, "Barefoot hiking. That's pretty rugged man." The other asked how the traction was. I just smiled and said, "Great!"

Continuing on, stopped on Preacher's Rock and ate. Mmmm... Peanut butter and jelly!

The view was beautiful. It is so awesome living near the Appalachian Mountains!

It started to rain when we finished up eating. It was all downhill, so we picked up the pace and started running. My feet hurt a bit, but it felt AWESOME running through the mud. I love how the body naturally dodges rocks and shifts weight to keep things smooth. We got some great barefoot running pictures.

My feet at the end of the run

Man I felt GREAT when we were finished. It helped that Whitney gave me a kiss at every white blaze(The Appalachian Trail markers). On our way home we swung by the river and cleaned our feet and legs off. What a blast!