March 31, 2005 | Day 4 | Miles: 3.2 | Total Miles: 30.5
End: Walasi-Yi Center, Neels Gap, GA
Danielle:
Rain, rain and more rain! Plus lightening and thunder from 2am through 9am. Fun fun.
We got up at 6am and started packing up. It was pouring so we figured we would head out early and try to geta spot in the hostel. And it worked! We're clean and dry now. Yeah. But it was a soggy 3.2m up and over Blood Mt. and down. Only took us about 1.5hours. We were moving! We plan to hang out here and eatand resupply and relax. Luxury :-)
Ryan:
rain, downpour, 50s
we planned to stop here, and stop we did. after a beautiful sunset last night, it started raining about 2am, with a healthy dose of thunder and lightning. so, we got up early and started hiking at 7:30 with everything basically soaked. by 9:00 we were at the hostel, and dripping wet. oh yeah, we climbed over the ga highpoint in driving rain. no views, but we hear blood mountain is nice this time of year. the hiker hostel is strange...small, cramped, smelly people, soggy stuff. the people are awesome, though. completely geared to hikers. it will be a great place to relax and stay dry for the night. chris, now bootleg, pushed on after sleeping late. aaron has left to go back to the real world, but mr. fusion and ghost are here, along with about a dozen others. bunk up.
April 1, 2005 | Day 5 | Miles: 10.6 | Total Miles: 41.1
End: Low Gap Shelter, Tent
Danielle:
After the good ol southern cooking at an AYCE buffet (with all the fried food like we saw at the buffet, it's no wonder most Americans are obese. Yikes!) and a game of poker in the hostel, we weren't the first ones out, but we did manage to haul ourselves out in the rain at about 9:30am. The interesting thing about the trail down here is that it is so different from the trails we are used to up in NH. It's mostly level dirt (or mud, more appropriately today), with lots of switchbacks to get you up a hill,instead of rocks and straight ups and downs. Seems much more mellow in that regard. I guess we move right along too, as we only took 5 hours to get to the shelter. We've been feeling strong, which is great. Saw our first daffodils on the trail today, although they were smart enough to keep their petals in in the rain. Unlike us. Oh, as an aside , I now have a trailname -- Sparkplug. Mr. Fusion came up with it this morning, talking about how I just fired up the hills. So that's me. It's pretty funny to try to introduce yourself as something other than your own name... A very interesting trail phenomenon. However, Ryan says the name fits, as I'm small and firey like a sparkplug would be, so I guess it's fitting :-) Our "group" has broken up a bit... Chris (or now Bootleg) is a day ahead; Mr. Fusion a day behnd as he stayed at the hostel. So it's us and Ghost, along with 15 other people in the shelter or camping like us on the fringe tonight. Quite a crowd. We're feeling good and are having fun, or at least our kind of fun :-) Happy to be out here!
Ryan:
rainy start, cloudy middle, rainy evening
after we survived the shuttle ride from the hostel to blairsville, stomached the all-you-can-eat southern buffet at the cookie jar in blairsville, and cleaned up in poker, ...we had a great night's sleep in the comfort of the hostel bunk room. and, the delightful smell! we were in no rush to leave this morning as it was raining, so we eventually hit the trail at 9:30. fairly mellow hike today with only 1 real climb, and eventually the rain stopped. now, we're resting comfortably in our tent as the rain has started to fall again. the shelter is jammed, as there are 18 people here total. bootleg is a day ahead after the register told us he stayed here last night, and mr fusion decided to chill at the hostel and wait out the rain. i hope we see them again soon because people become family real quick out here. the big event of the day is that danielle has her trail name - sparkplug. i think it's perfect, in a lot of ways. she's been hiking really strong, and smile broadly as she waits for me at the top of every climb. so, sparkplug it is. my trail name is still in the making, but i have a few possibilities kicking around in my head. the trail name phenomenon is very odd, but it makes it kind of fun, so far we've met ghost, patch, sunsomething, inspector gadget, the good doctor, bootleg, doorman, swinging jane, jaybird, spry, bravo, slipnslide, gg, ironfoot, clearwater, york, ox, naked son, and, of course, mr fusion, and a whole bunch more i can't remember. the name doesn't make you a different person,but i think it reminds you that we're all out here doing something truly unique. it's unfortunate that we won't all make it to katahdin, because we all deserve to, just for braving the rain and dealing with blisters. right now, there are a lot of aspirations on the trail. whatever the reason for starting this crazy journey, we all deserve a happy ending. i know that wherever the trail ends for danielle and i, we will have shared a great deal that few peo!
ple can ever realize or understand. why do you want to walk from ga to
me? i still don't know, but we're loving every step of it. and, oh yeah, we smell really bad. today's song - wish you were here, pink floyd
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