Date: 2004-10-23
To: Farrell's House
Miles today: 0.0

So where did I leave off? Blue Mountain Shelter right? As I said before that night at Blue Mountain was the first night I had ever camped alone before. During the night a fast COLD wind blew up from the valley, bringing the temperature down to around 5 degrees or so. I was warm though, my tent held well and my sleeping bag did its job. I think I mentioned the beautiful sunset on the left side of my tent that night, going between the two mountains with a deep snow orange color? The sunrise that morning was just as awe inspiring. After cooking some of my homemade scrambled eggs, hash browns and packing up I was off. Today felt like my first real day of thru-hiking. Although it still felt new I was far enough into the trip to know it was the right thing to be doing. Hiking the AT is my Everest; Mt. Katahdin is my Holy Grail, the Big Boss in the game of my life. Nothing has ever felt so simple and so right. That day the hiking was never really steep, just up and down and up and down, like a roller coaster. By the time I had climbed out of Unicoi gap the day had warmed up considerably. By the time I was on Tray Mountain I was in nothing buy pants and a T-shirt (In February!!) I stopped at Tray mountain shelter to eat lunch and filter some water, also debated about whether or not to try some of the vodka that was left at the shelter. (With more hiking I decided not to.)             Hiking late into the day I was looking forward to catching up with Magic that night at the shelter, it gets lonely awful quick when you're not used to it. The hardest climb yet came just before I got to the shelter, one thousand feet up in one mile, no switch backing for this happy Trail. After you get to the top of Kelly Knob the Trail edges around the right side of the mountain. Right before I reached the side trail to Deep Gap shelter I heard something HUGE grunt and start charging about 20 feet ahead of me. Racing up the side of the mountain faster than I could whip out my camera was a huge black...something. At first I thought "Bear!" then "Dog?" Finally in a last glimpse through the forest I see the tusks and body of a ginormous wild boar. Nothing comes from worrying so I kept hiking. I was disappointed to see that Magic wasn't at the shelter, he had decided to hike further before the light failed, but I did find a business card from Jason Barry, who worked at footsloggers in Boone and outfitted me for my pack and boots. I don't want to make this part of the story too long so I'll try to keep the rest short. I got up super early that morning so I could hike with the sunrise, so amazing. I picked up my second state that day, crossed the GA/NC border around one in the afternoon. Made it to Muskrat creek shelter by four and read that Magic and some others were at Standing Indian shelter, a few miles up. So I went a little extra that day and met a past thru-hiker named (SP?) Excelsior and a friend of his. It was so wonderful to talk to people again. I know a few days doesn't seem like a long time but it is one ting when you are home watching TV and another when you're hiking all day with a lonely feeling from missing your girlfriend. They shared some fried bread with me and we feel asleep to the pitter patter of rain on the tin roof of the shelter.    Saturday, February 21st, 2004- OK, I know this writing follows no particular writing style, order, blah blah blah. I'm just taking it as it comes ok?   The hike today went over Albert Mountain, famous in the southern AT because it is so steep you climb hand over hand to get to the top. The weather was again warm and sunny and I hiked so fast that I ended up calling my brother Farrell from Wallace Gap to pick me up for a night of rest at his place. (Thanks Farrell, none of this would have been possible without you.) At this point I had hiked a little over one hundred miles. Although it sounds silly, while I was sitting at Farrell¢s that night with a bunch of his (and my ) friends I already felt different, harder... it's hard to explain. The next day I took my first zero (meaning no hiking) I just hung around Farrell's and ate food a lot. This concludes this part of the story, the first hundred miles finished, a transformation has taken place.