Last Night in Georgia

First off I would like to say it has been great reading comments and emails from people. I don't respond mainly to conserve battery life on my phone and because I just go to sleep at night. I do get them all and enjoy reading them and just wanted people to know that.

It's been a few days since my last post but that is mainly because nothing outrageous has happened. From low gap I had a relatively easy day to the top of rocky mt. Rocky mt itself was tough but I think that is mainly because it came after 10 miles. The rest of the day was mostly gentle slopes. It was still 11.7 miles though which left most of the group pretty tired. I had a nice hour long rest at a great viewpoint on top before other people got there though. (The photo with the was takn there. I'm trying this method since my app likes to mess with the order of photos.)

In the morning, after eating breakfast and brushing my teeth with the same great view (photo below), I trekked on to deep gap shelter. This day was pretty strenuous since it involved constant ups and downs and also ended with the steepest section of trail in Georgia, Kelly Knob. It was worth it though because the shelter at deep gap was the most amazing shelter yet. It actually had four walls! In my book that basically makes it a cabin. I broke my tenting streak and stayed in the loft of this shelter which made the pack up time great this morning. Below is a photo of both the shelter and some of the crew. To put some names to people we have ultraviolet with the purple bandana, bunny with the short sleeve blue shirt, button is behind bunny, mr incredible is getting something from his bag, Emily is behind him (I think, she is hard to see in the photo) and Elastigirl is sitting on the step.

Today we all took a nero (near zero mile day) and hiked the 4 miles to dicks creek gap that has a shuttle to Hiawassee. In Hiawassee we are all splitting 2 rooms at the budget inn. It was nice to have a shower and do laundry once again. It was also amazing to eat all you can eat Chinese buffet for lunch and all you can eat southern cooking buffet for dinner. The best part of dinner was a salad bar, so many veggies! Tomorrow morning it's back to the trail and hoping to get in 12 miles to another shelter. It should be quite the moral boost when we leave Georgia after 9ish miles tomorrow.

Dry, Clean and Beyond

The day after my last post finally had the sun come out. It was awesome. I was a bit skeptical of how the day would go since people had been talking about how hard blood mt was going to be but in reality it was not bad at all. Nice view though (photo #1).

The best moment of the whole day was coming out of the woods and seeing Mountain Crossing sitting astride the trail. I would have taken a picture but the feeling of potential dryness did not allow for such delays. After I plunked down my money for a bunk in the hostel and laundry, wished Flash Gordon well as he pushed on and was assigned a bed by Pirate I hurriedly jumped into a shower. It was potentially the best shower ever, despite the dark basement atmosphere and oddly stained old towel given to me for drying purposes.

After that everything just felt better. Laundry and drying my gear didn't even seem like a chore. Pirate cooked us a great dinner and we donated enough money that he also cooked us blueberry pancakes in the morning. On that note, the people before us tipped a total of 23 dollars for 30 people. Needless to say, they received no breakfast whatsoever. See photo #2 for glimpse into Pirates abode. It was nice to sit on the couch and watch it hail outside, while Pirate mutters to himself about having to barbeque in this weather.

The whole group of us that have been traveling together (minus Flash) stayed at the hostel and since we have sort of developed into a regular group I feel that I should run down some names so I can mention them easier in the future. In no particular order we have; Kerry, trail name Button, who is from the UK, Greta, trail name Ultraviolet, from Iowa (maybe), Sam, trail name Bunny, from Miami, Emily, no current trail name, from somewhere, Brian and Bea, trail names Mr Incredible and Elastigirl, from Maine, Travis, no current trail name, from somewhere, Flash Gordon, real name unknown, from Connecticut, Red Fury and Highlife, real names unknown, from Michigan (maybe) and me. I realize that list means nothing but I will be referring to people by trail name and perhaps people might want some sense of background. The group so far has a great dynamic and we all get along pretty well. Almost everyone travels at very different rates so we mainly see each other in passing and in the evenings around food but it is nice to have a good group. As nice as it is currently I think it might be close to the time when it fractures into some smaller groups. It currently works because many of us are calling it a day pretty early in the day to keep our miles down while we adjust to so much walking. As that stops being necessary the faster will pull ahead and the slower will fall behind. It really only takes someone missing one night with the group and they are behind a whole day. That doesn't translate to many miles but they no longer see any of us. Flash is already 1/2 a day ahead and we only see him on his lunch breaks, if that.

This is turning into a very long post but it serves as a journal as much or more then a means of communication so it will have to do. Anyway, this morning I finally arrived at my trail name. I have accepted/help create Naked Ninja as my moniker. This came about in a rather odd way, as many trail names do. As anyone who has hiked with me knows I prefer to hike without a shirt on when it is warm despite this not at all being the norm. The first time Button saw this she said my trail name should be chip and dale after the dancers. This was quickly rejected by me as well as the rest of the group. Later the next day I came up behind her on the trail and jumped her and she amended it to ninja chip and dale, which is clearly an unacceptable mouthful. This morning I suggested that Naked Ninja would keep the sneakiness and the semi-clothed aspects of the previous suggestion but was much more pleasant to say. It was widely agreed upon and I am now know as Naked Ninja, ninja for short. This does mean that I have to participate in hike naked day, although I probably would have anyway. If your scared of such things don't hike the AT on the summer solstice.

Quick update on today's progress, I did slightly over 11 miles despite Wildcat mt completely kicking my but right in the middle of that (see photo #3 for the view on top). Went pretty well and spent a fair amount of time hiking with Ultraviolet. Was a nice change of pace to have a conversation partner as the miles drifted by. I made it to Low Gap shelter tonight at mile 43 and plan on going for a campsite on Rocky mt tomorrow, another 11+ mile day. Over half way done with Georgia and just 2.5 days out from the next town/shower. Still having a blast!

Moist Musings

I wasn't planning on posting a new blog post yet but I am sitting here in my tent while mother nature is continuing her effort to wash mid march hikers out of her woods. In the last three days I am not entirely I have clearly seen the sun. The first morning was quite foggy (see photo #1, I am going to attempt to refer to photos like this but if the order gets messed up in the posting just try and figure it out). After today it just seems normal to have about 50 feet of visibility. Photo #2 was taken today at roughly 11 am. As you can see it is basically the exact same.

Basically everything is at least a bit damp. Thankfully my sleeping bag is more dry then anything else. With days of rain it gets difficult to find time/locations to dry things out. At the moment my "house" is a bit crowded with attempts at drying (see photo #3). Despite the less then welcoming weather things are going fairly well.

The second day of travel involved the first actual elevation gains of the trip. While the was a reasonably challenging climb it felt odd to get to the top and have the exact same vegetation as at the start of the climb. It is going to take some getting used to seeing huge trees at 4,000 ft. I took it pretty easy and only did roughly 8 miles to Gooch mt shelter. Somewhere between 30 and 40 other people decided the Gooch shelter was a good spot to stop for the day.

Today took some real thought about distance. The shelter I would have liked to hit (blood mt shelter) is in a 6 mile stretch of the trail that you need a bear canister to camp in. This meant I had to either camp before hitting the bear zone or push on through it. Pushing through would make for a pretty tough day since right before Neels gap (where the bear zone ends) is Blood mt, which is the highest point along the trail in Georgia. I decided pushing 15+ miles and ending it with a big climb would be a bad idea on day 3 so I am camped at Lance creek. The result is two mild days, 8ish miles today and 7ish tomorrow.

So far the overall attitude of people on the trail has been awesome, with quite the variety of individuals. I assume it is unique to the group that I have been staying roughly with but women out number men. I had heard it was pretty extreme in the other direction so I have been quite surprised. I feel this post is a bit rambling but I don't really have anything else to do, sitting here in the rain.

Oh, I met a few groups of deer today. They were clearly not frightened of humans and crossed the trail within 10-15 ft of me each time. I sorta got a photo of them at one point (see photo #4). Well, on to Neels gap to have a shower and hopefully dry out a bit at the hostel there.

The Beginning

My journey started with a nice hour delay at the airport that became a 3 hour delay because I couldn't make my connecting flight. The result was I finally arrived at Atlanta at roughly 4:30. By the time I collected my bag (thankfully that part went smoothly) and rode the Marta train from one end of the city to the other it was after 6. This meant survivor Dave couldn't get me to springer mt. I took a cab to a hotel and got ready to get picked up at 5:30 am tomorrow morning. Despite what sounds like a horrible journey it was not really that bad. I had made it to Georgia with all of my gear intact, that was what really mattered.

The next morning I got up early and met Dave. He was getting me and then picking someone up at the Gainesville Amtrak station before heading to springer. We arrived at the springer mt parking lot at roughly 9am. From there it was a mile up to the top of springer. Even with the "interesting" travel I was still starting at basically the same time. I had been planning on camping on top of springer and starting in the morning, now I was just getting dropped off in the morning. I hiked up to the "peak" and then started my journey.

It seemed prudent to start off going pretty easy. No need to hurry and injury myself or burn myself out on hiking. I made it to hawk mt shelter and decided 9.1 miles is just fine for day 1. My pace was such that I could have easily done the extra 5 miles to the next campsite but I figured this was safer. There are a ton of other people starting at this time too. The logbook says 32 people stayed here last night and it is looking like 20+ will be here tonight. I figured it would be nicer tenting then being crammed in the shelter but now that I have everything set up it looks like almost everyone thought as I did and the shelter won't even be full.

I have also learned a downside of the app I use to write these blog posts, I can attach pictures to them but not insert them in like I would on a computer. Hopefully it works out and the pictures are just shoved at the front or end of this but who knows.

Take Off

Portland Jetport, 7:30 a.m., 20 March 2012:

Arlen checked his pack with all of his gear and boarded the plane carrying only his iPhone and a water bottle.

Arlen knew before boarding that he was going to experience flight delays. I haven't heard how difficult it may have been to rearrange his shuttle pickup or at what hour he may have reached Springer Mountain.

[posted by Jan, Arlen's mom]

So it's under twelve hours until my flight leaves, my bags are packed and the loose ends are (hopefully) all tucked away safely. I feel like the last few bits of planning went fairly smoothly. I have a shuttle to the trailhead squared away at this point, Survivor Dave is going to bring me from the northern most Atlanta Transit system station to Springer Mt. I opted for the slight extra shuttle cost to get dropped off right at the top of the mountain. Many people choose to get dropped at Amicalola Falls State Park. From there it is an eight(ish) mile hike up the mountain to the start of the trail. I decided against getting dropped there for a couple of reasons. First, I was not overly impressed by the looks of the state park. It looked like it was going to be packed with people and not something that I was looking for in my first night in the woods. Second, this means I will be starting the actual trail on March 21st. The only reason I choose to fly on the 20th is it was 20 dollars cheaper then any day within 7 days of it but since it worked out so well, why not start the journey with the spring equinox. Lastly, why add 8 miles to a 2180ish mile walk, it should be plenty as it is to fulfill any desire to walk.


This week I also finally made some decisions about the menu of food that I will be eating on the trail. After actually packing it all into my bag I think I am almost assuredly bringing an overabundance of food to start but I have heard so many stories about hikers being hungry I couldn't help it. To start the menu off I knew I wanted to make some hearty trail mix. I went to the grocery store and picked up 13 pounds of granola, 2.5 pounds of almonds, 2 pounds of sunflower seeds, 6 pounds of dried cranberries, 4 pounds of chocolate chips, 4 pounds of peanuts. To get some idea of what this actually looks like, here is it all combined in a trash bag.

That bag smelled amazing! While dividing it up into freezer bags a bit was accidentally consumed. The rest of my menu is rather standard fair, mac and cheese, rice and bean mixes, oatmeal with cranberries, tuna fish and salmon in a pouch, peanut butter, quinoa and cliff bars. The quinoa was a bit of a last minute thought but I enjoy the taste quite a bit and it has a high protein content so it seemed like the perfect hiking food. If I had thought about it more I think the rice and bean mixes would have been completely replaced with quinoa based things but forethought was not something that was in great abundance during this stage of the planning.  

Well, my bag is packed (probably overly so) with all my gear and I am ready to go! Hopefully my plans of keeping this blog somewhat regularly updated goes well. If there is some sort of snag in that plan please don't worry I am most likely fine, enjoying myself out in the wilderness meeting interesting characters. How could things go badly, I was given a rape whistle and a shuriken by my friends. What more can be needed to keep oneself safe in the woods?

Gear and other thoughts

I spent quite a bit of time reading reviews and looking for fairly specific pieces of gear. I was looking for a combination of the lightest, most durable and most comfortable equipment. For the most part I was able to find everything I needed to get at LL Beans which worked out rather well since the employee discount made it much more reasonable. One of the few things that LL Bean did not have a satisfactory selection was trekking polls. REI had a much better selection that included a set of ultralight polls that I think should work great. Here is the list of clothing items that I plan on bringing:

• Stowaway Gore-tex Jacket
• Stowaway Gore-tex Rain Pants
• Polartec Base Layer Top, Lightweight
• Polartec Base Later Pants, Lightweight
• Smart Wool Hiking Socks, Midweight x6
• Smart Wool Hiking Socks, Lightweight x4
• Smart Wool Trail Running Socks, Lightweight x4
• Tropicweart Zip-leg Pants
• Timberledge Shirt
• Super 200 Fleece Jacket
• Seirus Hyperlite Soundtouch Gloves
• Merrel Chameleon Arc Ventilator Shoes x2
• Gore-tex Cresta Hiking Boots

Not all of those items will be with me at all times. I will be starting the trail with the Cresta hikers and three or four pairs of socks. The Cresta hikers come much higher up the ankle which is something I wanted for potential snow hiking. However, they are also much heavier and bulky then a trail shoe which I will switching to later on trail. I completely guessed on sock volume but I figured it would be nice to get some fresh socks mailed down to me at different points along the trail. The gloves and base layer items will get shipped home once I feel fairly sure that am past most of the potential cold weather. Now for the list of gear:

• MSR Hubba Tent
• Phantom Sleeping Bag, 15 degree
• Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Sleeping Pad
• Leatherman Skeletool
• Gregory Baltoro 65 Pack
• Sea to Summit Ultralight Pack Cover
• Pinnacle Duelist cook set
• MSR Whisperlite Internationale Stove
• 16oz MSR Fuel Canister
• Black Diamond Ultra Distance Z-Poles
• Extra Carbon Tips for Z-Poles
• MSR Titan Cup
• SteriPen Adventurer Opti Water Purifier
• Black Diamond Head Lamp
• Polarized Sunglasses
• MSR Dromlite 4L
• 32oz Wide Mouth Nalgene
• Cheese Cloth for straining water
• Suntactics Solar Charger
• iPhone 4S
• Sleeping Bag Liner

And here is what both of those lists together actually looks like... When it is all unpacked and out it looks like quite a bit of stuff. Somehow it all fits down into my bag, with 10 to 14 pounds of food. It is rather amazing. A few notes about that gear list. The stove is not even close to the lightest or most compact but I already owned it (basically the only item I did not purchase new for this trip) and it is incredibly fuel efficient which is nice advantage. The Nalgene water bottle is also not the lightest option but I needed a water bottle with a wide enough opening to fit the SteriPen inside to kill the bacteria. The Dromlite is larger then I probably need but since it is a bag it doesn't take up extra space or much weight even if I only keep roughly 2 liters of water in it at a time. All in all, the suggested retail for the clothing and gear comes to something close to $3,500. Thankfully I was given some of the items and almost all of the rest I got with a significant discount at LL Beans. I haven't calculated out the weight yet but it isn't to far off of my goal.

With just ten more days until I leave I have been perusing the hiker count statistics collected by the Appalachian Trail Club at http://www.appalachiantrail.org/about-the-trail/2000-milers. some of the interesting stats about last year are that of the 1,700 people starting in Georgia planning on getting to Maine, 849 made it half way and 414 succeeded in their goal. Also, 59 south bounders finished the trail, 30 flip-flop hikers and 120 section hikers finished their journeys as well. While a roughly 25% completion rate doesn't sound insurmountable by any means it serves to remind me that there is a somewhat decent chance that this journey might end prematurely. I feel that I can handle the mental part of the trail but many people's journey is cut short because of injury or illness that is mostly out of their hands. Hopefully perseverance, strong mental strength and a little bit of luck will all come together shortly.

If you want to pretend to hike the trail but feel that your computer chair might be a more comfortable location for such an activity check out this 4 minute time lapse video http://vimeo.com/20218520. Things that I found interesting about this video include the fact that the hiker hit snow quite a ways into the journey at about 1 minute into the video and also how prominent the trail conditions change when the hiker hits the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The southern parts look well groomed but up here around the northern terminus of the trail it is rocky and covered in roots. On the up side that is basically the only kind of trail I have ever hiked so I will be ready, I better be.