Date: 2009-03-12
From: Springer Mountain

To: Hawk Mountain Shelter, GA 
Miles today: 7.8
Weather: overcast clouds

Cell Phone none in our tent but okay nearby in the campsite.Old Goats thoughts: We were dropped off at a parking lot on a Forest Service road. This dropoff is on the AT but at the .9 mile point in the AT. In order to start at Springer Mountain, the Southern Terminus, we had to backtrack the .9 mile. With that done we took one picture then discovered we have a bad battery. The second battery was deep in C6's pack so we looked at the display and after seeing we had one good picture we packed up and headed north. Oh yea we each picked up a hitch hiker in the form of a small rock. We'll be carrying our rock all the way north and leave it on Katahdin.The hiking was challanging to say the least. We held our own but were glad when we reached the shelter. Now with dinner done and the temperature dropping rapidly we'll be heading to bed faily soon. 7:00pm not quite hiker midnight, but close. The adventure continues tomorrow, with all of the high and low points to be discovered. Check Six's Thoughts:Wow! Josh and Lee run a fabulous hostel! We stayed at The Hiker Hostel last night. If you haven't heard of it, or seen it, you're missing a real treat!! After a delicious breakfast, Josh took a van load of us to the start point. Some elected to start in the Amicalola Falls State Park and hike the 8.8 miles to the sign at Springer. We decided to go to a parking lot that is .9 mile from the sign. We took our time starting up to the sign, so the others were on their way down when we neared the sign. "The others" are: Hightop (Tom, from Concord, NH), Finch (Lori, from NH), and Red Leg (Aidin, from Maine). "Hightop" is from the high top sneakers he wore playing basketball years ago, I think he said. "Finch" is for the NH state bird, the purple finch. "Red Leg" was his call sign when Aidin was an artillery officer many years ago. He has a cool patch on the shoulder of his coat...a photo of his grandchildren.(I typed the next pararaph before Old Goat typed his entry...interesting to read his perspective on how the hiking felt today.) Hiking today wasn't too hard because we aren't sore yet. Tomorrow will be a very hard day...I understand there is a difficult mountain ahead of us, and our muscles will probably hurt. About 2/3 of the way to the shelter we both commented that we had had enough for the day, but we plugged on. At the beginning I was extremely frustrated! It felt like I was making us hike SO SLOW! Then we hit a fairly level part and our speed picked up, so I felt better. The next hills slowed us up again...I know we'll get in better shape each day we keep hiking. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get to the gym much over the past three months, so we aren't in as good shape to start with as we had hoped to be. Ugh! We arrived at Hawk Mtn Shelter around 3:50pm (forgot to write it down). Plenty of time to pitch our tent, cook and eat supper and visit for a while. There are probably about 18 people here tonight..enough in tents so those who want to sleep in the shelter have room to do so.When we arrived at The Hiker Hostel yesterday, we got the two large boxes we had mailed to ourselves there (with a lot of our gear, and our first 3 days' of food) and packed our packs. We immediately discovered a missing pole for our tent! It's a key pole for our tent. Yikes! Old Goat is very resourceful! He found a thick plastic coat hanger and broke off the bottom part to make a temporary ridge pole until we can buy a replacement. The puzzle, however, is that both of us are positive he had put it in one of the boxes! (But the boxes were still sealed when we got them.)An interesting note on how people have different comfort levels. I was putting on layers because I was getting cold. At the same time, Big Red had taken off his shirt and was washing his chest, then he shaved without his shirt on. Brrrr!!   On our way here someone told us that some Army Rangers (out of Fort Benning, GA) were dropped to the ground by helicopter right next to this shelter at 11:00pm last night. Rangers train in these woods. We could hear gunfire or bombs. We did see and hear Army helicopters all afternoon. With our military backgrounds, I'm enjoying this.We discovered we set our tent up backwards. How do you do that? We didn't realize one end is configured to be where our heads should go...where the zippers for the vestibules are easiest to reach, and there are small pockets at that end that can old our glasses. So we stay backwards tonight because one end of the tent is higher than the other. We'll be sure to check which end is which from now on. We also find the tent to be much smaller with us, our sleepng bags, and a bunch of our gear inside versus empty...as it was when we set it up after we go it. It's big enough for us, just not as spacious as we were thinking.   It's 7:45pm....and still light out. Good night.Old Goat & Check Six