Arlen's Adventures

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?