3/30-Weather

Well it looks like the weather is not going to cooperate for my first day on the trail. Current forecast is for rain and thunderstorms. This is actually not super bad news because there have been reports from the trail that some of the small springs are dry. That is a bad thing as it forces you to carry more water, and water is heavy! I bought some dehydrated water the other day but I think I may have been scammed. If anyone has any pull with the weather gods, see if you can get it to rain ahead of me, but not on me, much obliged!

--Later
Brian

------------------------------
Sent via PocketMail
Email Anywhere
www.pocketmail.com

1 Week

Hard to believe that by this time next week I'll be walking north from Georgia.

So it seems the most common piece of advice for hiking on the trail is:

'Start slow....then slow down'
Most folks tend to want to do 20 mile days right out of the gate. I know I catch myself thinking along those lines quite often. As I've mentioned to lots you all, I'm not really 'planning' out my schedule too much. But here is my scheduled stops for the first section:

Day 1 Springer -> Hawk shelter
Day 2 Hawk -> Gooch shelter
Day 3 Gooch -> either Woods Hole shelter (3600 ft elev) or
Blood Mtn Shelter (4450 ft elev) depending on weather etc.
Morning Day 4 resupply at Neels Gap then camp somewhere just 'north' of Neels gap depending on how long I stay there

Next resupply point is Hiawassee which is 30 miles up the trail from Neels gap, based on the first section I'll estimate if that is a 3 or 4 day trip while resupplying in Neels Gap. My hope is that I'll be doing 10+mile days after the first couple days....but we'll see

'Start slow....then slow down'

In Hiawassee I'll be staying at one of two hostels, probably Cloud9 or maybe The Blueberry Patch.

Nine miles after that I will be out of Georgia and into North Carolina (Hi Heather,Lance and Noah!), 1 state down, 13 to go!

Once I have a couple resupply 'sections' under my belt I'll be able to predict better when I'll be passing through any given area. A couple folks have mentioned meeting up with me, or maybe doing a little bit of hiking along the way, so hopefully I can start ballparking some dates for you.

I've been watching the weather down south, looks like they are getting 45/70 (low/high) temps and not much rain. While 'not much rain' sounds good, apparently folks that have already started are running into dry springs and dried up creeks. Northern GA, western NC and eastern TN seem to be experiencing a drought. This means that when you do find water on the trail, you need to 'camel up' i.e. drink all your water and refill your containers. It also means keeping your containers full which is heavy (2 liters of water weighs 4.4 lbs!) And for you metric weenies (hey martin!) that is 2 kg...hey that sure does make sense, its almost like it was planned 1 liter = 1 kg.

As to weights and measures I think I've finalized my pack and I should be tipping the scales right around 30lbs (~13 1/2kg, hi martin) here is the break out:

Base weight 19.0
Food 6.5
Water 4.5

Later!

Less than 2 weeks

Here's a factoid for you all:

"Each mile of the AT has an average elevation GAIN of 217 feet, which means a thru-hiker will climb and descend a total of 88.79 miles between Springer and Katahdin. That is the equivalent of going from sea level to the summit of Mt Everest AND back more than sixteen times."

Oh joy!

Well, I am now 2 days into 'not working'... pretty weird. Just finalized my base pack, I've replaced my alcohol stove with a JetBoil...at approx. a 12oz weight penalty, but it boils water in under 3 minutes and makes coffee temp. water in about a minute....you can guess my priority here Also replaced my $6 blue foam pad with a Therma-rest pro lite 3/4 length sleeping pad. (3 oz penalty) It is a self inflating pad that packs small enough that everything now fits inside my pack instead of strapped to the outside. I guess I'm a little OCD about that, everything is in it's ziploc, in its stuff sack, inside its pack, inside its pack cover. With all that, it will all be damp, I'm sure, with the first good rain. These new acquisitions are courtesy of TriSept, as a going away present. I can't say enough about how supportive they have been. A good group of folks.

I'm wavering between being eager to go and trepidatious (not sure that's a word) about beginning a new thing. The closer I get to my 'go' date, the more I realize how much I'm going to miss CharLt and Isaac.

One month to go!

On one hand it really seems like time is flying, on the other hand it seems like it can't get here soon enough. I guess that is true of anything, kind of like summer vacation as a kid, sometimes it seems summer went on forever, but before you know it you are out shopping for back to school clothes. Anywho, here are a couple websites for you home contestants to check out.

AT Database

This website has a bunch of information about the shelters along the trail and mileage from Springer and to Katahdin. So when I say I'm at the 'Gooch Mountain Shelter' you can check it out.

This is a link to a google map of the trail
Google Map


--Later!