Appalachian Trail #1

Many of you who read this (well, at least two of the three who actually read it) know that part of our journey was going to include Z-man and I walking a portion of the Appalachian Trail (AT). For the one who didn’t know, the AT is a trail that runs 2100 miles from Springer Mountain, GA (about 50 miles NW of Atlanta) up the east coast to Kahadtin, ME in north central Maine. My original intent was for us to walk about 500 miles of the trail. I modified that to more manageable plan of us walking four sections of about 100 miles. We would do one each of the first and last sections (GA and ME) and two other sections in NC/TN and VA. I had hoped to start in early March which is supposed to be OK, although a little early in the mountains of GA. However, based on our trip, we ended up being in eastern TN with a decent window of weather, so we made the decision to start in late Feb. I had also intended to wait until we did all sections to write a blog, but since we have been neglecting our blog of late, I’ll go ahead and write one for our first section.



Z-man and I began our AT hike in Helen, GA, at mile 50.1 on 24 Feb. We headed out of Uncoil Gap (2950’) at 1230 and immediately started up Blue Mountain (3750’). We exchanged packs every 90:00 when we stopped for a break. Z-man’s pack is not as comfortable, but it’s lighter. He can really make time – I can’t keep up so he stops every so often and lets me catch him. The first day we walked about 14 miles , 5 miles of which was in snow. It was really tough – slippery and like walking in sand. We stopped at 1845 (6:45) after finding out that the shelter we were headed towards was actually 1.3 miles off the trail. A mile doesn’t sound like much, but with packs and the dirt/snow/mud trail, we average about 2 MPH, so that would have meant another :40 of walking. We ended up putting the tent in a parking lot and spent the night.

We enjoyed a delicious meal of MREs and Z-man was actually asleep by about 8 which was the earliest I remember him going to bed…ever. On Tues, we started at 0830 and were low on water. Made Z-man some hot chocolate for a morning wake up, but used up our remaining water supply. He’s in good spirits and is doing better than I had thought. No complaints in spite of a couple of injuries and he’s humping a less than ideal pack. It is an Army internal frame MOLLE pack which is not comfortable. We walked for about two hours before coming to a small “stream (a flow of about 2” wide by 1” deep) that we used to refill our Camelbacks. We made the 5.6 miles to Neel’s Gap by noon. Things got fun immediately after our break as we walked the 2 miles up Blood Mountain – the highest point in GA on the AT. Lots of rock stairs – many of which were snow covered -- made for a tough climb up to 4500’. It was nice to descend after that, but we both got real tired about 4 miles out from our finish. Had one last 1200’ climb prior to finishing at Woody Gap. The RV met us so we could go together to a new camp site with the intention of returning to Springer Mountain to walk the first 18 miles of the trail. Unfortunately, the nearest campsite was vacant and we had to drive 85 miles to find one. Thus ended our first section of the AT. Total for the two days – 31 miles, lots of climbing and descending and more snow that would have been preferred. I Look forward to our second section which we hope to do in VA where we will meet the Roberts boys for a day of hiking

Peace, Dad