The Longest Mile: Nine Days in the Great Smoky Mountains

For nine days in early May, Ryan Watkins along with two brothers, Jeremy and Chris Jones, backpack the world-famous Appalachian Trail through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. From his very first steps into the Smokies, Ryan quickly learns the seventy-mile stretch of trail is far more difficult than he ever imagined. The trio battles through torrential rains, lightning, snow, fatigue, multiple encounters with bears and a standoff with a timber rattlesnake as they march more than eighty miles from Standing Bear Farms, a small hostel north of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, to Fontana Dam on the park’s southern tip. Along the way, the group meets a colorful cast of hikers while experiencing the most physically demanding and personally rewarding nine days of their lives. This story is a painfully honest, unadulterated and sometimes raunchy retelling of a hike that is definitely not suitable for readers of all ages.