271 miles and 23 days into our AT adventure! As we up the mileage to 15-20 miles a day were more tired, but were getting stronger as the days go by. A couple years ago, we remember hiking in the Whites, NH and complaining that the Appalachian Trail did not go over enough mountains. Hah!! That was a riduculous assumption. We have gone over more mountains than most people climb in a lifetime and were only 1/10th ish of the way to Maine. But the mountains are beautiful and the wildflowers are all in full bloom, pulling us forward!
Happy Easter! On Easter Sunday we were met by two trail angels who gave us fresh fruit! It was our first apple in weeks. We were inspired by their tales of completing the trail and their generosity in giving back to other thru hikers. Later on that day we talked to a fellow thru hiker who overheard a tourist tell the trail angels "Wow we had no idea that there was such a large population of homeless people in this town." LOL, yes, we may look grungy, but were not homeless. The trail is just our home for the next couple of months.
As we hike more miles each day we get to see new people. We're always excited to see other girls on the trail, since the girl to guy ratio is rather biased towards guys. However we're keeping pace. After passing quite a few hikers one day, a thru hiker commented "Wow, you guys hike fast for girls! You guys hike like guys." So we're keeping up and crushing a few egos as we pass some Macho male thru hikers:)
Hot Springs is the first town with a real grocery store, since leaving Springer Mountain, GA. So needless to say Becky and I were very excited about seeing town. Becky nearly fell off the trail in excitement, while Amanda day dreamed about every building full of fresh vegetables and cereal. Most hikers are craving beer and hamburgers as they exit the trail, but we have more unique cravings. Becky's been looking forward to grilled salmon and sweet potato chips, which she may never actually get and Amanda craves Cinnamon chex rice cereal and fresh raw vegetables, yum!! The last two days before a resupply we mostly talk about food; it gets pretty ridiculous:) We made the mistake of going to the grocery store as soon as we got into town and ended up buying two huge bags of groceries and ate all of it in one evening! Wow "the hiker hunger" is a real thing. You can eat 1000 cals in one sitting and an hour later feel hungry again. Haha.
Hope you all are doing well!!
Best,
Amanda and Becky
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Hi from Fontana Dam, NC (162 miles and 15 days into our AT adventure)
Hi all,
We finally have Internet, yeah! Here begins our account of our AT adventures;)
We took a taxi to the trailhead of the AT, and wow was our driver a character. We could barely understand a word he said, which he explained away as a slight cough, but the 4 cigarettes he smoked (after tearing off each filter) in our half hour drive to the trailhead might explain otherwise. However, he had a contagious laugh and many stories of other hopeful AT hikers just like us:)
We mostly go by "The twins" since its easy for people to remember, but our individual trail names are "Quercus" (latin for Oak tree) for Amanda and "Maple" for Becky. We decided to give each other tree names based on our personalities. Becky's the sweeter twin, always stopping to take pictures of wild flowers, and Amanda's the more hardcore twin, lets keep trekking forward no matter the elements.
On Day three of our adventure we saw two fluffy white dogs, but had to resist petting them, because we decided we were way too grungy, LOL.
We are mailing food and other essentials to Post Offices along the way (Thanks Mom and Dad for mailing our packages for us!!!!). We picked up our first resupply in Suches, GA (11 days worth of food). It was heavy and that's an understatement. After climbing Blood Mountain (the tallest Mt in GA), Amanda declared at the top that the 2 lbs of instant brown rice was going into the first dumpster she found. (We really left it at a hostel for other hikers to use). All along we have been loosing gear and food as we realize how little gear we need and how unwilling we are to carry anything unessential all the way to Maine (bug spray, maps, spices, sleeping bag liners, extra fuel, batteries, etc.)
Hanging our food in bear bags has also been an adventure. Amanda is use to carrying a bear canister, since out west the bears are too smart to be tricked by hanging food, so neither of us is experienced with hanging food. Therefore we have had some interesting first attempts in hanging bear bags. First of all, neither one of us are champion throwers. Usually the first try ends up with Becky "Maple" accidentally throwing the rock backwards and then ducking for cover. Yes, its as hilarious as it sounds:) We have also realized that it is important to hold onto the other end of the string before hauling the rock over a branch. Amanda "Quercus" hauled one rock over a branch with so much force that the string wrapped around twice and then got caught in another tree. In order to get the rope untangled Amanda had to climb 6' up a tree "Bear hug style." Amanda figured that if a bear could climb a tree, so could she, LOL. So far we have always been successful, and have not gotten our food stolen yet. We have outsmarted the Bears!!
Others have not been as lucky. For example, there were four hikers camping at Blood Mountain shelter. Three of them had hung their own food and were sleeping in the back room. The other hiker was still cooking dinner in the front room. All 4 heard a bear successfully take all of their bear bags that they had hung in trees outside the shelter, and then the bear came inside the shelter. The hiker cooking his food, dropped his bear bag and ran into the back room, and they all were trying to crawl out the windows. But the bear only grabbed the last food bag remaining and ran into the woods. This story has been traveling up and down the AT, and we have heard 4 different versions so far, but I believe this is the real one, because I got it from a hiker named "Meatloaf" who claims he got it from a primary source:)
We have met many many other cool hikers along the way! Everyone's so wonderful. We have met people from all walks of life, all ages, and all experience levels which is why the AT is so amazing. The AT brings together people from all backgrounds with one crazy somewhat disillusioned notion that their place in life at this very moment is to walk from Georgia to Maine. A couple even offered to ship us letters of encouragement and possibly some food, because she had a son our age and they were the nicest people.
We're now heading for the Smokey's tomorrow, currently stuck in Fontana Dam, waiting for a food package to arrive. We'll try to update the blog again in a week in Hotsprings, assuming that we can find Internet. Otherwise we'll be mailing letters to a friend (Thanks Supriya) who will be updating our blog for us, when we can't find Internet. There's Internet everywhere, but no computer access in this era of iPhones, LOL.
Hope you're all doing well!!! Best, "The Twins"
We finally have Internet, yeah! Here begins our account of our AT adventures;)
We took a taxi to the trailhead of the AT, and wow was our driver a character. We could barely understand a word he said, which he explained away as a slight cough, but the 4 cigarettes he smoked (after tearing off each filter) in our half hour drive to the trailhead might explain otherwise. However, he had a contagious laugh and many stories of other hopeful AT hikers just like us:)
We mostly go by "The twins" since its easy for people to remember, but our individual trail names are "Quercus" (latin for Oak tree) for Amanda and "Maple" for Becky. We decided to give each other tree names based on our personalities. Becky's the sweeter twin, always stopping to take pictures of wild flowers, and Amanda's the more hardcore twin, lets keep trekking forward no matter the elements.
On Day three of our adventure we saw two fluffy white dogs, but had to resist petting them, because we decided we were way too grungy, LOL.
We are mailing food and other essentials to Post Offices along the way (Thanks Mom and Dad for mailing our packages for us!!!!). We picked up our first resupply in Suches, GA (11 days worth of food). It was heavy and that's an understatement. After climbing Blood Mountain (the tallest Mt in GA), Amanda declared at the top that the 2 lbs of instant brown rice was going into the first dumpster she found. (We really left it at a hostel for other hikers to use). All along we have been loosing gear and food as we realize how little gear we need and how unwilling we are to carry anything unessential all the way to Maine (bug spray, maps, spices, sleeping bag liners, extra fuel, batteries, etc.)
Hanging our food in bear bags has also been an adventure. Amanda is use to carrying a bear canister, since out west the bears are too smart to be tricked by hanging food, so neither of us is experienced with hanging food. Therefore we have had some interesting first attempts in hanging bear bags. First of all, neither one of us are champion throwers. Usually the first try ends up with Becky "Maple" accidentally throwing the rock backwards and then ducking for cover. Yes, its as hilarious as it sounds:) We have also realized that it is important to hold onto the other end of the string before hauling the rock over a branch. Amanda "Quercus" hauled one rock over a branch with so much force that the string wrapped around twice and then got caught in another tree. In order to get the rope untangled Amanda had to climb 6' up a tree "Bear hug style." Amanda figured that if a bear could climb a tree, so could she, LOL. So far we have always been successful, and have not gotten our food stolen yet. We have outsmarted the Bears!!
Others have not been as lucky. For example, there were four hikers camping at Blood Mountain shelter. Three of them had hung their own food and were sleeping in the back room. The other hiker was still cooking dinner in the front room. All 4 heard a bear successfully take all of their bear bags that they had hung in trees outside the shelter, and then the bear came inside the shelter. The hiker cooking his food, dropped his bear bag and ran into the back room, and they all were trying to crawl out the windows. But the bear only grabbed the last food bag remaining and ran into the woods. This story has been traveling up and down the AT, and we have heard 4 different versions so far, but I believe this is the real one, because I got it from a hiker named "Meatloaf" who claims he got it from a primary source:)
We have met many many other cool hikers along the way! Everyone's so wonderful. We have met people from all walks of life, all ages, and all experience levels which is why the AT is so amazing. The AT brings together people from all backgrounds with one crazy somewhat disillusioned notion that their place in life at this very moment is to walk from Georgia to Maine. A couple even offered to ship us letters of encouragement and possibly some food, because she had a son our age and they were the nicest people.
We're now heading for the Smokey's tomorrow, currently stuck in Fontana Dam, waiting for a food package to arrive. We'll try to update the blog again in a week in Hotsprings, assuming that we can find Internet. Otherwise we'll be mailing letters to a friend (Thanks Supriya) who will be updating our blog for us, when we can't find Internet. There's Internet everywhere, but no computer access in this era of iPhones, LOL.
Hope you're all doing well!!! Best, "The Twins"
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Leaving Tonight
We're leaving tonight. No time to type, but everything is almost organized. We hope!
Goodbye Cities. Hello Mountains.
Goodbye Cities. Hello Mountains.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)