We're Off!

Friends, family, and others, hello from Hiawassee GA.

It's been a week since I left for the adventure of a lifetime, that is... the AT.  As of today little over 60 miles over some of the roughest terrain along the entire AT.

I will be brief, but my posts are covering a week's worth of events so please​ bear with me.

So late Sunday afternoon we arrived at Amicalola Falls State Park. Now officially, the AT starts on top of Springer Mountain. This is merely the 9 mile approach trail to get to the top. 

This water fall is beautiful, but get to the top you need to walk up 600 stairs straight up the cliff (I'm not kidding).  Now due to our late starting time and that grueling staircase, we ended up camping about 3 miles short of Springer.

Next morning, we made it to Springer! We officially started on the AT.

Then we power hiked to Hawk Mountain shelter putting in a whopping 11 miles on day 2. 

Day 3 arrives bright and early. We took it easy to compensate for our massive hike the previous day. But, as we hiked, we met the rumors of THE norovirus (I'm not a doctor, so I have no idea how to spell this disease). Apparently this virus was contaminating the springs. Some said the springs for the next 10 miles were contaminated, others said the the next 50 miles.  Nobody knew a thing about it.  But from the sound of it, you would have thought Ebola 2.0 had erupted. 

After 7 miles we made it to Gooch shelter. A trail Ambassador was at Gooch (Ambassadors are people who stand in for the Ridgerunners, basically these are the people who monitor the trail). Anyways, turns out this virus was simply a rumor. Regardless, people were antsy about the water.  A group of collage student thruhikers crashed at Gooch as well. So we hung out and learned how to play Yucher. Awesome time with these guys.

Drake and I plan on continuing our "take it easy" approach on day 4 and only hike the 8 miles to camp at Lance Creek. But we rocked it and arrived at Lance by 12:30. So we aimed to sleep on Blood Mountain bringing our total mileage up to 13. We then hike the brutally beautiful hike up to Blood only to find out we needed​ special bear cannisters to spend the night up there. Now exhausted, we hike 2 miles down the mountain to Neel's Gap. At least we could get some pizza at the hostel there.  As luck would have it, the hostel was full and the cafe closed at 6:00 and we arrived at 6:05. So we had to hike an additional mile up to Bull Gap to camp. Yeh, our "take it easy" hike turned into a 16 mile day.

Again, we compensated by only hiking 7 miles up to Whitley Gap shelter. This shelter is a mile of trail, so it's not a busy shelter. We make it around 2 (which is super early), and it turns out that someone had beat us there.

Mario had been camping at Whitley for the last couple of days. A self-proclaimed tramp, Mario had spent the last 15 years traveling and tramping first Europe and then America. From living on the streets of Berlin to working as tour guide in the Everglades or a cook at a resort near the Grand Canyon, he had done it all.  

We were later joined by another thruhiker and Ridgerunner Rachel. The five of us spent the evening listening to Mario's stories of his travels and playing with Von Helga, the puppy he had rescued several months earlier.

Then Rachel goes back to her tent and comes back with a duffle bag. She had found it stashed under a rock during her rounds. Turns out, this duffle was chock full of weird awesomeness.

It had a file of Star Trek pictures and certificates of aunthenticity for model trains, a military dress hat, a pouch full of military patches and medals including a purple heart, a scrapbook full of old (late 1800's to the 1950's) newspaper clippings all related to this small town (Watertown Wis.), a bar of soap, and a pack of cigarettes. We couldn't decide if it was a tribute to someone deceased loved one, or if it was a relic of a family feud, or a riddle to an inheritance, or the clue of a murder--our speculations got more and more fanciful.

Weirder still, as we're flipping through this scrapbook, I notice an article with my last name. Yes, there were a set of Jaeger brothers that operated the mill in Watertown​. I took a picture of the article and will have to look into this (I hope the resolution is good enough for you to read it as well, look at the top picture and the second paragraph from the top of the second column you'll see "Jaeger").  Then with mystery on the mind, Mario played his guitar and we hit the sack.

The next day we got up with the sun, which isn't too hard since when the sun wakes up, the forest wakes up. And when the forest wakes up, it wakes you up.

We made good time to Unicoi Gap where we hitched a ride into Hiawassee.  We devoured a plate of chicken fingers at the local Zaxby's for dinner since the small town was sadly lacking a Chick-fil-A.  We are taking a zero day to restock and enjoy more fast-food.

That's all for now. Please add these thruhikers to your prayers:

-Big Country
-Austin
-Kelan and Onyx (his dog)
-Pharmacy
-Michael
-Jordan
-Amber and Basil
-Price Tag
-Blue Lion
-Quick Start
-Bear Man

And special prayers for Mario and Von Helga as they are making their way to Nashville.