Date: 2010-02-21
To: Wither the Weather???
Miles today: 0.0

Twenty days from today, I will arrive in Georgia ready to begin my hike. That¢s the good news. There IS no BAD news!Ok, sure, I¢ve got a few loose ends to tie up before I can go, but nothing I can¢t handle. I have my flight to Atlanta booked, my reservations at the Lodge at Amicalola confirmed, and all of my gear has long since been purchased and packed ¢ ready to go. The only question in my mind at the moment is ¢ ta da! ¢ the weather. If I glance up from the kitchen table where I¢m writing this entry, I can see mounds of snow occupying the high ground of my back yard. And the low ground as well. Some of it is only about a foot deep. In other places, it¢s closer to 2 12 feet. Temperatures are supposed to reach the mid-40¢s today, and we¢re supposed to have rain tomorrow (possibly mixed with a bit of snow), but that should reduce the current accumulations significantly. On the other hand, the five day forecast is calling for more snow (snow showers, actually) on Thursday... I remember vividly what the weather was like on my first days on the trail in ¢05. It was 72 degrees on the Saturday I arrived in Atlanta and in the 60¢s the next day when I started my journey north. Within a few days, however, we encountered our first snow. It was day 5, and we were heading out of Neels Gap for the Low Gap shelter. That was the day that ¢Snowman¢ and his wife, ¢Icicles¢ got their trail names. I remember waking up the next morning to snow on my tent. Fortunately, it wasn¢t very deep, and soon melted. Three weeks into the hike, while I was trying (unsuccessfully) to recover from injuries at Fontana Dam, my friends were prevented from heading into the Smokey¢s by another, more serious, snow storm.   Similarly, last year, we had to high-tail it out of the Smokey¢s to avoid a threatened snowstorm. We hiked through that one from Standing Bear Farm into Hot Springs, and had some wonderful war stories to tell of fighting our way through monster snow drifts on the way over Max Patch. So a bit of snow is absolutely to be expected when you start your hike in mid-March. And we¢re prepared for it in terms of both our gear (hopefully!) and our expectations ¢ honed by reading the journals of hikers from earlier years on this site. Sometimes, of course, the weather can get to be a bit much. In ¢03, for example, they had a ton of rain ¢ 25 days in May, for example. Last year was similar ¢ I think we only had four days without rain in our first month. I¢d rather have rain than drought, however, as water is really important to me ¢ and especially in the summer months. What I¢m beginning to wonder about is whether the weather this year may continue to set records for snow. Is all the record-breaking snowfall we¢ve had this year in Virginia simply a harbinger of things to come in March? Or is this just Mother Nature¢s way of getting it all out of her system before I start my northern journey exactly three weeks from today???In one sense, I am quite indifferent. If we encounter a lot more snow, I¢ll simply do what Second Stage is doing now ¢ take zeros in town, and make up the time and distance later, which is eminently doable. Plus, whatever the weather extremes, I know from experience that they simply add to the repertoire of exciting war stories that the Class of 2010 will be boring their friends with for the next forty years or so. And, of course, they¢ll get all the more extreme with the passage of time. So it¢s all good. Like I said: There is no bad news. Go Tenners!