Week 1. Day 1 through 6

Well sorry it's been awhile before I posted. Granted I have been in the mountians. Anyway I going to try to sum up the past 6 days in a page or so.

Day 1 was Feb. 19. We only hiked 7.7 miles. But it did rain all day. It never really quit. Wasn't that bad though. Still very pretty outside and glad to be out in the woods. We stayed at Hawk Mountain for the night. There were 6 other guys there. The two Florida boys, Shady, Tebo, Ole' Greg, and HawkEye. Funny thing about HawkEye is that he is 54 years old and is carrying a 58 pound pack, but he is really fast. Shady has been with us everyday since then.

Day 2 was Feb. 20. We hiked 9.2 miles. Well we woke up to frozen everything. Boots would bend at all. Had to break theim in. Other than that it was a very easy day of hiking. The weather turned out to be very nice by noon. We went on past the shelter and decided to tent because Blood mountain was tomorrow. So during this hike Goose caught a small little Rainbow trout probably 5 inches long tops. well HawkEye took it broke it's neck, ripped out the bones in one movement then ate the thing raw. Dude is crazy. Ole' Greg will be staying with us tonight also.

Day 3 Feb. 21. 12.5 miles. BLOOD MOUNTAIN. We started off this moring hauling butt. Then it started hailing on us which then turned into sleet then it turned into snow. That last for about 2 hours. Wasn't that bad though. Shady stayed with us most of the way today. Anyway today was the hardest. Blood mountian is the highest point of the trail south of Clingmans dome. It's tall. After a couple of breaks we made it up. The view was amazing. You could look in any direction and see as far as you wanted to. It was only Shady, Goose, and I at the shelter tonight. So anyway about 5 minutes into sleeping the small mouse comes out. I had some nutella in my bag so I threw it out into the middle of the floor so the mouse wouldn't eat through my sleepingbag. Well we woke up about 1ish to the sound of Nutella been eating by what we thought was the same mouse. It wasn't it was a rat the size of a beaver. This thing was massive. Anyway the stupid beaver rat never stopped. The rats hole was by my head. So he would run down beside me and the wall then around my head to his hole. Well I got tried of this so I waited for the thing to get between me and the wall and it did I threw my elbow at him. Hit him and he started yelling. Anyway he finally ran back in his hole.I grabbed the Nutella a threw it out the window. I missed. The beaver rat was back. I gave up went to sleep. Woke up and the Nutella was gone. Beaver rat won.

Day 4 Feb. 22. 10.3 miles. Not much to say about this day just three big mountain ranges that went straight up and straight down. Pretty weather thought.

Day 5 Feb 23. 13.3 miles. Headed on to Blue mountain. We stayed on this old logging road for about 6 miles so that was very easy then we hit the mountain ranges and everything got tough quick. Bunch of switchbacks and ups and downs. Very nice weather all day. For the last 3 miles we had the honor of hiking over a massive rock slide. These rocks were all softball size rocks and would move as you would step on them so you could never get a good footing. Blue Mountain had some crazy winds. Two day hikers were there. Both High School English teachers.

Day 6 Feb 24. 8.1 miles. Headed to Trey mountain. East hike with the exception of Trey Mountain which I guess the people at ATC thought it would be funny if they made people hike up 1200 feet in 0.7 miles. Yeah it was steep. Anyway the temp dropped about 40 degrees in a matter of 200 feet. Got cold and it stay cold. That night was a low of like 18 or something. Didn't help that we had a stiff 30-40mph wind going into the shelter non stop. We slept 7 deep that night in the shelter. Me, Goose, Shady, Bisquit, Old Timer, Maybe, and GroundHog. Headed to Hiawassiee tomorrow with Shady and Goose.

The Beginning

Well it's finally that time. JT Howell and I will be setting off to hike the 2,180 mile foot trail known as the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail starts at Springer Mountain, Georgia and ends at Mount Katahdin somewhere in the middle of Maine. It also passes through 14 states and is some of the most beautiful landscape that the US has to offer. It will hopefully take us only 5 months but anyone who knows JT and me something will go wrong and take us probably closer to 6 months. We will be leaving Saturday the 18th of February and actually start hiking Sunday the 19th weather permitting.

The reason that JT and I have created these blogs is to keep our family, friends and anyone else updated on what we are doing on a day to day basis. We will update as often as we can. We are both bringing little notebooks to write in everyday so we can look back at all the memories that were made after we finish the trail. You can also keep up with us through our facebook pages.

Also if you would like to check out JT's blog the address is http://jthowell35.blogspot.com/.

P.S. I hate writing and grammar so forgive me ahead of time for the many mistakes I will make.