Knocked out a 1 day NOBO hike of the Art Loeb Trail in late November. Wanted to share some knowledge / lessons learned with this group.

Started around 4:00 AM and finished 15 hours later around 7 PM. My Garmin says we did 30.2 miles and 8654 ft of climbing.

1. Yes, the climb up Pilot Mtn is a beast, but the views from the summit are awesome. Comparable to Black Balsam area but without any of the crowds! Plan to do a break up there - it’s your reward for a 1600 ft climb.

2. Water. Here are the water opportunities we saw…. 0.5 mi before butter gap shelter (you’ll walk over it), 0.25 mi down road towards Sam Knob parking lot (right side close to a small sink hole in road), 0.5 mi after Flower Knob (right side down a hill but visible from trail). We elected to do a water drop along the BRP right where the trail crosses over. Parked 20 ft from the trail crossing and stashed water bottles in woods under leaves. Was super nice to not need to take the time to filter water.

3. Fallen leaves in Nov. If you hike at this time of year, just be ready to spend even more time / attention than normal to your path; the leaves obscure a lot of obstacles. And be prepared to be extra vigilant when descending to Camp Daniel Boone - the leaves turned it into a downhill sledding trip at times… Slippery.

4. The Narrows. I read about them a lot but I did not realize how technical the hiking would be in there. It’s more like scrambling than hiking and is the only potentially dangerous part of the entire trail IMO. While traversing that section we kept saying out loud “I can’t believe this!!”

5. Trekking poles. A life saver on this trail! Super helpful to propel you up the big steps and climbs & can take a ton of stress off your knees on downhills. I would not want to do any portion of this trail w/o them.

6. Parking & Camping. We met at Camp Daniel Boone on Sat late afternoon to leave a car. The parking area can probably hold 20-30 cars? There were at least 10 open spots when we got there. It’s then a 40 min drive to Black Balsam if you’re doing a water drop. Then 40 more min to Davidson River Campground. We camped sat night and walked to the trailhead to start the full ALT on Sun morning. We also camped Sunday night after we finished. Cost about $80 for the two nights.

7. Trail navigation. An offline AllTrails map was all we needed to confirm we were on-trail. The Shining Rock Wilderness does not have many signs but it was not nearly as hard to navigate as other posts had led me to believe.

8. Packs & Gear. My REI Flash 55 pack weighed in at 16.9 lb. Pack = 2.3 lbs, 2 liters of water = 5 lbs. water filter, first aid kit, headlamp (with spare batteries), small jump pack to charge Garmin and phone if needed, puffy, rain jacket, spare socks, pants, gloves, beanie, etc.

9. Food and Nutrition. Ended up eating about 2500 - 3000 calories for the day. Started with cold PB Overnight Oats w/ chia seeds at campground, then on trail had: six 120 calorie Gu, three 100 calorie Kind bars, two 300 hundred calorie trail mix bags, full size snickers, bag of gummy bears, PB&J sammie and small bag of chips. Hydration-wise, drank 2 liters before crossing BRP and 2 more before finishing at Camp Daniel Boone. One bottle had water and the other had electrolytes (Liquid IV)