Date: 2009-03-20
From: springer mtn

To: mt. katahdin
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

We've done the first 108 miles of the trail...completed all of georgia and are now in franklin,nc to celebrate me becoming a quarter of a century....the trail has been a blast...we started on springer mtn. with a bottle of whiskey and beutiful sunset. on the 21 we set out and had beautiful weather for several days! we heard coyotes howling right outside of our tent! blood mtn was incredible and i can't wait to go back and day hike that after the thru-hike...we got to mtn. crossings on monday and (thanks to dad) got spend the night in a cabin and grab a pizza and shower! we got a gear shake down with wenton and the gang at mtn. crossings and ended up sending a few things home including the blow gun...but we are thinking in the summertime we will def. pick that up! outside of neels gap about 5 ppl had their food stolen out of the tree they hung it in the night before by da bears...we've been making sure to hang our food real high.(so high that it got stuck and logan had to climb the tree to get it down!)then the rain started! we had several long days of rain and missed a few good views! we made it into hiawassi to dry out and take our first "zero" day of no hiking! we hit the chinese all you can eat buffet, dairy queen and the mexican rest. all in one afternoon...haha. hungry hikers! a few days ago...we crossed over into NC. as soon as we got over the state line we started a climb...everyone around us was cussing NC because all of a sudden we had frost,snow, and sleet that nobody was expecting! logan and i laughed it off as the 20 mph wind was gusting and we were freezing...finally made it to muskrat shelter where there was fire going...and we crashed for the night in our perfect little home/tent.yesterday we were hiking and heard some music and saw a sign for trail magic...we bolted that way and found fishing fred and gatorade were there making thru-hikers grilled cheeses and had sodas and coffee...such a perfect treat right before climbing mt. albert! mt ablert was gorgeous! we climbed up the fire tower and could see all of the over 4,000 acre basin below. last night we spent our first night in a shelter...so that we could wake up early and get to a road crossing where there was a shuttle! as soon as it went quit we could hear the mice coming out of the shelter walls...ugh. we got up and made it 3.7 miles and found that the baptist church "trail angels" had set up an umbrella for hikers and were giving them goodies(coffee, slim jims, nutterbutters, doritos) soon after ron haven showed up in a school bus that he uses to shuttle hikers around in and brought us into franklin...here we sit and wait for mom to come have a visit....back on the trail early in the am to make it to NOC (and hopefully a few days of hiking with bruthar Russ!)we've made lots of awesome friends! all of our gear is holding up perfectly! no blisters! (well i've had one tiny one but i'm not a whimp!) we are having a blast....going to try and post a few pictures! love you all and will update you as soon as we can! track us on the spot... http://share.findmespot.com/shared/gogl.jsp?glId=0hlfdvtWfbWTCupgiLTGYjxf2VvCXnrEXlove, george(the butcher),logan(doo) and corbin"the mountains are calling me home"