My wife and I have been planning this trip for a little over a year now. She is a high school English teacher, and is the first teacher is district history to be granted a leave of absence. This is very good news for us, as someone will have a guaranteed job to return to. I'm a senior buyer for a manufacturing company, and will most likely walk away from this position.

Our anticipated start date is December 31, 2014. No, you didn't read the date wrong! We both have logged plenty of winter backpacking trips, and plenty of miles hiked in snow. We're hooping winter on the trail for use won't be as bad as things were this year. We're expecting and planning for a slow start through the Smoky's, and hopefully a faster pace after that. We've hiked several sections of the trail, and all these sections have been hiked around the end of year.

I guess you could say we're more of your traditional hikers, rather than you're ultra-liters. We'll carry more weight than rest, and most of that will be food. If we're going to be living on the trail for 6-7 months, we're not going to live off noddles every night.

Looking forward to some crisp cold days on the trail!