2005 Thru Hike
WEEK ONE – 04/10/05

It was the end of a long week, and I still have not accomplished all the little things I wanted to do before leaving. My gear was spread out all over my room, and I still had not taken the pressure washer back to Home Depot because of a defective part. Yesterday, I went to the Feed Store and got enough salt and mineral blocks for the cattle and cubes for the horses to last most of the summer.

This morning (Sunday), Mom and I got the tomato, pepper, and squash plants set out, and I did a few more chores before finally getting serious about my pack I had planned to spend about an hour packing, then going to Home Depot, and maybe getting on the road about 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. I had to laugh as I was packing. In 2003, my first hike, my pack weighed 72 pounds before my sister got hold of it. We were at Amicolola Falls – me, Mom, my sister Cameron, and my then girlfriend Krystal. I had a big plastic bin full of all these things I thought I would need, and I just kept putting things into my pack – like a Tupperware bread holder and a plastic container that would hold 6 eggs. I was determined that I was going to eat well. I also had 5 dinners, 5 lunches plus plenty of oatmeal and snacks.

I have very dry skin so I had hand lotion along with deodorant, shaving cream, dental floss, scope, Noxema, sunblock, and a first aid kit that contained everything from Tylenol and peroxide to cotton balls and antiseptic wipes. If you want a really good laugh, go to my gear list for 2003. I also had a woodburning stove that weighed several pounds as I thought it would be easier to find small twigs to burn than to carry fuel!

We did get my pack down to 55 pounds before I started out, which I thought was absolutely great – until I got to the Walasi Yi Center. Wynton, who runs the Center, and Cornbread, a hiker working there, got a big laugh when I walked through the door. Cornbread got a box and filled it with all of my "must haves", addressed it to my Mom, and mailed it off. My pack weighed 45 pounds when he got through.

Anyway, Mom said she would take care of the pressure washer if I would finish packing and get an earlier start. By 6:00 p.m. I was on the road. I had wanted Mom to drive me but she could not take the time off from work (she is running my Dad’s law office in Dallas). So I decided I would drive my 1995 Yukon up to Miss Janet’s and try to get a ride from there to Springer Mountain. Baltimore Jack, whom I met on my 2003 AT thru-hike, and who will be my hiking partner, is working at the Outfitters in Hot Springs, N.C. I am supposed to pick him up Monday at 5:00 when he gets off work. It is only about 45 minutes from there to Miss Janet’s in Erwin, Tn.

Getting this early a start, I won’t have to drive all night. I drove through a big rain storm in Louisiana and then stopped in Alabama about 5:00 a.m at a motel to sleep. I was on the road again by 9:00 a.m. and ended up in Hot Springs about 3:30 and waited for Jack to get off. We then drove to Miss Janet’s house. She was as glad to see us as we were to see her. Jack cooked steaks out on the grill, and we enjoyed visiting with all the hikers that were there. Also, do you remember FuBar and Tripp who met on the Trail in 2003 and got married in Damascus a month later? They were also visiting Miss Janet, and we got to talk about old times. (see their wedding on Week 10 – 05/12/03 on my 2003 Journal)

I have been looking for a big rock but haven’t found one. When we reached Maine in 2003, right before we headed into the 100 mile Wilderness, Jack hid a huge rock, about 3 or 4 pounds in my pack, which I did not discover until we camped that night. I intend to pay him back. I will find one when we start hiking and slip it into the bottom of his pack and get a big laugh when he discovers it. Jack packs pretty light so it cannot be too heavy or he will discover it right away.

We stayed at Miss Janet’s until Friday, helping her to transport hikers to and from the Trail and doing odd jobs that she needed us to do. We had a good three days, relaxing, watching movies, and eating good food. But on Friday, it was time to leave. A hiker named Fat Chap volunteered to drive us to Springer Mountain. It took us about five hours as it is a little over 200 miles.

When we got to Ranger Station, we met Josh and Brock from Oklahoma. They were going to do the approach Trail from Ranger Station to Springer which we promptly talked them out of. It is an 8.8 mile trek – uphill and steep all the way. They rode with us up the Forest Service Road to the parking area which is .09 miles up the hill. But first, we had to take them to a service station because they had no fuel for their stoves. Brock also had no eating utensil. So once we got the denatured alcohol, and got to the parking lot, we bid Fat Chap good bye and started up the hill.

We did all the usual things atop Springer Mountain like sign the hiker’s register and take pictures of each other. For any hikers-to-be out there, there is a wonderful Inn at Amicalola Falls as well as cabins spread out at the top of the Falls as well as at the bottom of the Falls. Last time we stayed in a cabin at the top of the Falls. It was really nice – had a kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living room with a fireplace and a screened-in porch off the living room that had incredible views. As I recall, it was $99.00 per night for the four of us.

There were about twenty hikers at Springer Mountain Shelter so Jack and I pitched our tents. It is about 70 degrees and a nice afternoon. I have a new tent this year – a MSR Hubba Tent (3# 11 oz with rainfly and footprint) and a new Mountain Hardware Phantom sleeping bag (2# 1 oz). I have no intention of getting cold this time around. Did I mention that my pack only weighs 40 pounds this year? We also ran into Kung-Fu here who we met on our 2003 hike. He was doing a section-hike,

For one thing I have learned the cold, hard truth about food. I am carrying only 3 dinners, some teabags, bouillion cubes, flour tortillas and cheddar cheese and some of those little hot sauce packs that you get at Taco Bueno for lunch, salt, pepper, garlic salt and garlic pepper in those tiny little bottles, some Tobasco in a small plastic bottle, Molly McButter, cracked red pepper in a baggie, a small amount of cooking oil in a small plastic bottle, and three packages of Ramen noodles for emergency purposes. No oatmeal! I ate so much of it on my first hike that I have not been able to eat it since. I also have a few Snickers (bite size) hidden away as well as some gatorade in a baggie so I can spice up my water once in a while. I have denatured alcohol for my Tinman stove – which is, of course, made from a Mountain Dew soda can. It weighs only a few ounces compared to the 3 pound stove I carted around for a week the last time. I met Tinman on the Trail a few days into that hike, and he has become a really good friend. He is an air traffic controller in North Carolina who loves hiking. He sells these stoves, as well as pot cozies, on his www.antigravitygear.com website for about $12.00. His pot cozies are about $7.00 and well worth it. After heating your water or meal, you put your cooking pot into the pot cozy. The pot cozy keeps your pot hot and keeps cooking your food which allows you to save on your fuel. I also pack a few of those small black camera film containers with cotton balls which have been smeared with Vaseline. You can light a match to it, and it starts a nice little fire that burns long enough to get your stove started in case you run out of fuel on the Trail

Speaking of the Trail, back to it. Brock had to eat oatmeal with his fingers since he did not have an eating utensil. You do what you have to do. And I had beans for dinner.

I did not take any beans with me, but when I unpacked my foodsack, there suddenly appeared a two pound can of beans and a can of tuna which Baltimore Jack had hidden in my sack and which was two pounds more I had to carry 8.8 miles straight up the hill from the parking lot to Springer Mountain. I thought he would have forgotten about the rock he hid in my pack in Maine last time, and I thought I could pay him back before he remembered. He is one step ahead of me.

Saturday, April 16 –We were up at 8:00, headed North. To me, this is the prettiest part of the whole Trail. It is a gentle incline, forested, with beautiful flowers and reminds me of the beautiful scenes of the forest in the movie, "Last of the Mohicans". The Appalachian Trail has a real aura about it. You begin to capture this feel immediately upon leaving Springer Mountain. I think it could also fill you with a false sense of security. It is better to start off doing 6 to 8 miles per day for the first few days, even if you think you are a seasoned hiker or in pretty good physical shape. A lot of hikers develop knee problems or leg and ankle problems starting out too fast and pushing themselves too much. You can ease yourself into ten mile days soon enough and before you know it, you are doing 12 - 15 mile days without any problem.

We stopped at Stover Creek Shelter where we ran into a weekender, a guy who did not bring his sleeping bag because he would only be here for a couple of nights and he froze because it got down to about 30 degrees. We hiked on to Hawk Mountain Shelter where we found an odd-looking duffel bag hanging on a bear cable in a tree. It was obvious that no one was around or coming back so we took the bag down and found some trail mix and a spoon that Brock desperately needed.

Jack and I and the two Okies camped this evening at Horse Gap. There was a guy from the Northeast camped here doing Trail Magic. He had extra water, candy, and beer – and he and Jack got along real well. Speaking of water, the green horn that I was in 2003, I ran out of water my second night out very close to here. I guess with all the weight I was carrying then, I chose to take less water than I should have, and Krystal and I ended up praying for about 3 hours for God to help us. He surely did, in the form of four college students from South Carolina who happened to come our way. I never made that mistake again.

I had a dinner of Lipton Teriyaki Noodles, hung my foodsack, toiletries kit, and first aid kit on my bear cable, crawled into my new sleeping bag which is an extra long because I am over six feet tall and it gives me a lot more leg room, and fell immediately to sleep.

We did ten miles today, and it has been a good week. Tomorrow we will begin the hike up the dreaded "Blood Mountain". I hope to hear from all of my hiking friends – Bgone, Lee Perry, Just Plain Jim, Pauline, Rick (CampinFan), Alabama Walker, Pat and Gary, Lil, and all the rest of you who corresponded with me throughout my 2003 hike via my Guestpage. Thanks for tuning in and see you next week.

MOUNTAIN DEW