1 state down

Hey ya'll!  Well we've made it out of Georgia and into North Carolina!  There is a lot less poison ivy here, the rocks have changed a bit and it got cold.  Really, really cold!  We managed to dodge some rain this past week, spent a little time hanging out in shelters while some others trudged on in the rain.  It sorta makes you feel guilty when you wait for the sun to come out, hike on and catch up with those who are now trying to dry out their stuff and you have managed to stay dry. 
It is like a moving community out here on the trail.  There are probably 20 or more folks that we have been leap-frogging with.  It is nice to hike down the trail and run into people you know!  Everyone is out here to have a good time and though we come from different places, are different ages, and have different backgrounds, we all get along and have stories to tell.  

There have been a few casualties along the trail.  Many millipedes die in order for us humans to make this journey, and in the past two days we have seen 2 dead moles along the trail.  The moles were rather large with big front claws for digging through the underbrush.  It looked as though they may have made a desperate scramble and met their end underfoot. 


The trail has been a joy to hike!  Sometimes it meanders through open forest with little undergrowth, and other times it goes on and on through almost tunnels in the Rhododendrons.  There are shelters every 7 miles or so I would guess on average.  In between we pass nice spots to camp almost every mile.  When there is a nice view, overlook, quiet spring, or comfortable log, there is usually evidence that others have stopped to soak it up, and maybe soak up a granola bar or two.  The area we have been passing through has had a lot of elevation change.  As we get into Virginia it will flatten out a little and stay that way until we work our way back up into Vermont and New Hampshire.  That is a ways up the trail however.  In not too long we will be passing through the Smoky Mountain National park! 

So yesterday we woke up to some snow on the tent!  It was just getting colder and colder the day before.  We spent the evening sitting around a nice fire with some friends in a somewhat sheltered gap.  It didn't seem to warm up at all yesterday as we hiked, and found out that the forecast called for another night below freezing.  One kid that we have been seeing on the trail said his little thermometer registered 15 degrees the night before last.  Butch and I put on all our thin wool layers and wore our jackets inside our sleeping bags and managed to stay fairly comfortable.  Need some supplies, however, gave us a nice excuse to come into town and get a hotel for the night.  We managed to hop on a shuttle at Rock Gap yesterday at around 1:30, after hiking 9 miles or so.  The shuttle is driven by a local guy named Ron who owns a couple motels in Franklin, NC.  He has done some hiking and likes hikers, so he drives the shuttle, picks hikers up for free even if they don't stay at his place, offers discount rates for hikers and takes you back up to the trail in the morning.  He feels it really helps the local economy to bring people in, and I'll bet he is right.  He was a professional wrestler down in Mexico and traveled around for the better part of 30 years before coming back to where he was from and running hotels catering to hikers.

We have to get going, need a few more things from the store before we catch the shuttle back to the woods. See ya up the trail!

Beginning steps

Well we took a "zero" day today due to rain. Only left the tent a couple times all day to pee and get some food from down out of the bear bag. We have been moving well and the trail has been nice! We are happy that we have shaved our heads. A quick rinse in a spring feels like a shower, almost.  We are also glad that we are using trekking poles. They don't make much difference on the flat ground, but are a huge help on the uphills and greatly assist with breaking on the way down!  It is Wednesday evening, we started hiking in the late afternoon this past Friday and we are at about mile 54. Not bad for having a couple short days and not moving at all today. 
We have adopted trail names, as all thru-hikers do.  Officially we are Butch Culpepper and the Stonedance kid, aka "Butch" and "Stonedance".
We weighed in at a place called Neel's Gap, a nice outfitter store and lodge. My pack weighed just over 29 lbs and Butch's was just over 26. That was with full water and way more food than need be carried on the AT!  We have seen lots of other folks with much larger packs looking enviously at our small bags. Right away the talk among many hikers at the shelters has been about what to get rid of.  On the other end of the spectrum is our new friend we've dubbed "Fannypack".  He has everything rolled up and tied around his waist, weighs about 15lbs. That being said, he needs to stop more often for food and water and is sleeping in the rain in a minimalist bivy sack right now.
Our efforts at preparing food with the dehydrator, and vacuum sealing have been paying off. Deer jerky, dried fruit, homemade trail bars and our rice and lentil dinners have all tasted absolutely delicious out in the woods.  Especially tasty were some 'caramelita' bars that my mom made and we sealed up! 
We have been seeing lots of lovely flowers beginning to bloom. The tall trees are leafing out. There is poison ivy almost everywhere!  We haven't seen any big animals though there has been evidence of coyotes and bears on the trail.  Butterflies, millipedes, newts, woodpeckers and owls have been abundant. Lots of other birds offer a nice soundtrack as well.
We had heard that the town of Helen, GA, was worth checking out, so yesterday upon arriving at Unicoi Gap we hitched the 9 miles in to town to check it out.  It is a Bavarian themed tourist trap, but quaint and awfully surreal to come upon after being in the woods.  We had a bier and some Krautkapfen at The Old Heidelberg restaurant. Krautkapfen is sauerkraut rolled up with dough and pan fried, topped with big slabs of bacon and bacon gravy; delicious! We picked up a couple things at the grocery store and then hitched back out of town up to Unicoi Gap.  We headed up the trail which had become wet with rain that had come and gone, and set up camp at the first site we came across.  We managed to get the tent set up just before a storm rolled in, and have been here since. Hopefully it will be nice enough to dry our tent out tomorrow before we head off, but we will move somewhere regardless.
...pretty sure I just heard something rather large stumble through the woods just a ways over.  Oh well, "Fannypack" is sleeping just up the hill with his empty liverwurst wrapper next to his head. I'm not worried. Until next time, happy trails!

Uff-da

Well, I've completed the first leg of three flights today and currently find myself in Milwaukee.  Since I have last blogged, life has been a whirlwind of trying to get everything in order to leave for six months in the woods. Sally and I began moving things out of our house and into the storage unit (thank goodness it's only a hundred yards from our front door) and right in the middle of that I left to attend the NCECA conference in Seattle. NCECA is the National Conference on Education for the Ceramic Arts.  It was a blast! Those clay artists sure know how to party. Saw some great art, great friends, and all while walking in the chilly drizzle that typifies Seattle in the spring.
Upon arriving back in Bozeman I had a list of things to accomplish. The Otter pelt in the freezer got tanned, I fired some Sake cups and bottles for Seven Sushi in Bozeman and delivered them, we ran the food dehydrator until the last minute and frantically used the vacuum sealer to package meals, I cleaned up my space in the pottery studio, My boss Don and I dropped off some stone mosaic art pieces to a retail space where hopefully they sell, we also worked on a potential foray into the Reality Television industry, and I dropped Sally off at the airport to fly south with enough time to get back home and throw the last of our belongings in the car so I could vacuum the floors before the carpet steamer guy came. Walk-through complete, I hopped in the car bound for Minnesota with a quick stop-off to pick up Sally's down sleeping bag which had just arrived, special order, that morning.
It was nice to spend Easter with family. I had the realization on the way back from Seattle that it would be a good idea to ramp up my caloric intake prior to walking for days on end. I have seriously employed this tactic in the past week, and found myself in a food coma in my aunt's living room after the Easter meal. 
I'm sitting here with a backpack. That is all. That and some trekking poles which I brought along just to mess with TSA. This will hold my food, shelter, and clothing for the next six months.
I want to thank the guys at Prolite Gear for directing us to the most trick equipment, Northern Lights for pressuring Western Mountaineering to rush sleeping bags, Hyperlite Mountain Gear for making Sally a custom pack, our friends who have been supportive of this crazy idea, especially those whose support came in the form of buying pottery from me in the past few days, and last but not least our families. They know that Sally and I are both crazy, but their love endures nonetheless.