I had a long update typed out and it all got deleted. I will try to give you a make-shift shortened version.
Day 1: Amicalola Falls to Stover Creek, 11.6 miles. made it to the summit of Springer by 2pm so we added an extra 3 miles (Nate was thrilled).
Day 2: Stover Creek to Gooch, 12.3 miles. Rained ALL day and night. Quickly got over the infatution phase of the AT (I'll expand more on the phases later). Met up with 2 thru-hikers and 2 Atlanta friends section hiking to Hiawassee.
Day 3: Gooch to Neels Gap, 15.6 miles. Motivated to get dry clothes and a shower, we hiked 11 miles to the base of Blood Mountain, the highest point on the AT in GA, 2 miles up, and 2 miles down. Made for a long day. The weather cleared and we had a beautiful view from the top. Met Pirate, the man who runs the Neels Gap hostel and had a black tie gala (we were given neon orange trail marking tape for ties).
Day 4: Neels Gap to Blue Mountain, 18 miles. Mixed up Blue mountain and Tray Mountain shelters. Added 7 miles to the originally planned 11 miles. Made for a long day, but we had a fire by our Atlanta friends.
Day 5: Blue Mountain to Deep Gap, 15.3 miles. Lost and gained 1000 feet within the first 3 miles. First 7.5 miles took forever to Tray Mountain. Finally made it to Deep Gap as it started heavy snowing. Had mice troubles. I freaked out a little bit envisioning they were eating away at my pack (they didn't).
Day 6: Deep Gap, 3.5 miles to US 76. Hitched in to Hiawassee. Resupplied at Ingles. The bakery people must have thought we were nuts as we salivated over the dougnuts and other junk foods we had been craving. Mailed off a few pounds of unnecessary gear--extra pot, waterpoof bags that were too small, sunglasses, first map (woohoo!), towels, etc.
Will hit Bly Gap, the boarder of GA, NC tomorrow morning. 4.5 more miles today.
I had more humorous stories in my other post. Sorry for dumb internet.
Petra
Did you stay at the bluberry patch? They are the best :) and don't worry - the folks at the ingles are used to thru hikers. Joe and I walked thru there doing the same thing (buying doughnuts and rasin-bread) last year. all our clothes were in the wash, so I was free-balling in my windbreaker pants and wearing only my jacket. no socks. good times :p
ReplyDeleteSounds like its been too warm so far - snow is way better than cold rain. Keep having fun! Hope to meet up with you guys for a weekend in VA.
Unfortunately the Blueberry patch doesn't open until February 15th so we just spent 4 hours in town and had a short 8 mile day. Court is meeting us in Damascus on the 4th of March to bring us to Lynchburg, but my brother and I want to day/weekend hike Dragons tooth &/or McAffee's knob.
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