Date: 2008-09-01
From: Monson

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Hey its Nate here. So this is the first time Ive been on this thing so I will update you from the start. So last year, I was really hoping and planning to go to Wheaton college to play football. The problem was, there were a couple distractions in my way. First off, I blew out my shoulder in the spring so football was out of the picture. Second, I didnt even get into Wheaton so that was no longer an option. So... it was Easter when I was at my Grandma's house and I had no idea what I was going to do after I graduated. So I was talking to my brother about next year and college and my future plans when the idea of hiking the Appalachain Trail came up. I remember talking to my bro and we had a blast talking about how sweet of a trip it would be. That night, I couldnt sleep because I was thinking about the trail. Thats when I knew my plans for the next year. I was going to hike the AT with my brother. Now here I am, a couple months later 100 miles into the trip. Thanks to God's will and provisions, my parents support, Phils decision to join me, and lots of careful planning(not nearly enough...HA), we are finally on our way off in the middle of the woods going on this crazy adventure. So we just completed our first section of the trail starting with Mt. Katahdin and into the "100 mile wilderness". It has been an absolute blast so far. Katahdin was a great hike especially with the whole family. Im just glad Phil and I finally started. There was so much stress in all the planning and preparation before we started off last Sunday. It just feels good to head off into the woods and start this crazy journey. So for the past week, we have been hiking about 17 miles a day. A typical day for us so far: Wake up around 5:30, eat a powerbar and start hiking. Hike for a couple miles and stop for breakfast. We have had a couple sweet meals in the morning on top of mountains making oatmeal and adding freshly picked blueberries. Then we hike for a couple more miles before stopping for lunch break. We usually try and find a sweet creek or stream to chill at and go swimming. Lunch break is great because we take at least an hour and a half to hang out. The one problem is, im already sick of the trail mix we are eating which is not good because thats my lunch for the next couple months. We usually finish off the day around 4-5 and eat dinner and hangout. Thats definetly my favorite part of the day, just hanging around the campsite munching on some sweet food. Thats one of the nice parts of the trip so far, we eat well. Everynight, im stuffed after pounding tons of food. Im not sure if im going to lose wieght this trip or gain it. We usually go to bed around 8 which is nice especially because we are usually exauhsted from the long day by then. We brought a little crank radio so every night, we fall alseep listening to the Red Sox game or listening to some soft calming jazz. A couple of highlights of the trip so far. White House Landing. About 40 miles into our hike, we came to the White House Landing that is about a mile off the trail. Its basically a hikers Hostel that a couple runs in the middle of the 100 mile wilderness. We walked into this sweet little cabin on this lake. I looked up at the menu and the first thing I saw was "1 pound Burger" on the menu. It was amazing, expecailly considering the fact that 70% of the time that Im hiking which comes out to about 5-6 hours a day, all Im thinking about is food. So you could figure how seeing that "1 pound Burger" fulfilled all my dreams. Words really cannot describe how good that burger was. I could barely lift it never mind take a bite out of it because it was so big. So that was definetly one of the biggest highlights so far. Another big highlight was the "trail Magic". "trail Magic" is when someone leaves food in the middle of the woods for hikers to eat. Well one day, me and Phil were trying to bust out a 20 mile day and we had about 4 miles left and we were both exhausted. There was one mountain left we had to hike and at the base of the mountain, Phil found a bag hanging on a sign and in it were cans of Sprite and a bunch of Whoopi Pies. We eached grabbed a couple and busted out those final miles the fastest we have ever hiked and devoured those pies and drinks with our dinner. It was amazing. Well this trip has been a lot of fun so far and I look forward to many more adventures. We really apprecaite all of your prayers and support and we look forward to updating you on future adventures.