Note: Karen Chavez, outdoors writer with the Asheville Citizen-Times, is writing a series of articles about Jennifer Pharr Davis and family’s hike across the state on the MST. Start here, then click “Read more” for the full article. 

CLINGMANS DOME – Before the start of her latest epic adventure, world-famous, record-setting athlete Jennifer Pharr Davis must first change Gus’s diaper.

Then nurse her 10-month-old. Then keep her 4-year-old daughter Charley from running into the road in the Smokies on the way to the adventure.

Her husband, Brew Davis, already seems exhausted and a little frazzled before the hike even began Aug. 15. He was the logistical mastermind who helped to get his wife up and down the 2,185-mile Appalachian Trail in record time in 2011. She sped across the spine of the Appalachians in 46 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes. The trek takes most people six months.

This time, the adventure is a family expedition as Pharr Davis sets off to hike the 1,175-mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the Carolina coast, in honor of the long trail’s 40th anniversary.

Read more here.