Date: 2015-03-12
To: People We Met
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Let me tell you about some of the people we met at the Kick-Off and on the trail:Sir-Packs-A-Lot ¢ he is a thru-hiker and runs a new hostel called Top of Georgia. AWOL ¢ another past thru-hiker who has written the most used guide for the AT.Miss Janet ¢ woman with a van who drives up and down the trail giving rides and help to hikers.Other speakers and vendors.At Black Gap Shelter and campsite there were:Two college age guys out for a weekend hike.An upper-20¢s year old gal who had quit her good job and was thru-hiking alone to Maine.A 40-ish year old man who came in tired and worn and grumpy, laughing with us at his cussing tirade against the 604 stairs and 7 miles of trail he had hiked that day. He sat at the picnic table, loudly proclaiming it almost killed him! He didn¢t have much water supply, he said he was doing it against his doctor¢s orders, and he put up his tent and went to bed, although we could hear his groaning and moaning for a couple of hours. I¢d love to know how far he gets!When I left our tent to go to the privy before bed, there was a 30-ish year old woman sitting alone by a nice fire. We said hello, and then she engaged me in a long conversation. She is German, and talked fast, so I didn¢t catch it all. But I did look in amazement when she lifted her pant leg and she had a prosthetic left leg. She told me she was an avid adventurist and had ridden a bike across the US 3 times, along with lots of other feats she rattled off that I didn¢t catch. She lost her leg only 15 months ago in a rock climbing accident. Her harness broke and she had a free fall that should have killed her. She was happy to be alive and was trying to be the first person to successfully thru-hike the entire AT with a prosthetic leg. She offered me a swig of her Italian liquor she was drinking, but I politely declined. During our classes, we watched the experts go through a woman¢s backpack and advise her on what she needed and what she should leave behind. One of the things the guy pulled out was a camp chair. Too heavy and not necessary, he said. We met this girl later on the trail and her husband was the man who gave us a ride back to the parking lot. He said she had been planning and training for her hike for 2 years. He was unable to go with her as he had a job he couldn¢t leave. He also said that she put the camp chair back in her pack. She wasn¢t going without it!All along the trail, we met people coming and going, and always there was a quick, ¢Where are you going? How are you doing? Have a safe hike!¢ It feels like a community out there, and though there may be a strange one or two along the way, the trail does not feel unsafe, at least from other humans. I found the terrain much more concerning than the people!*Quote: "Getting to the top of those steps hogged all the brain cells I had allocated for 'Thoughts, Dismal and Dark.' I literally stopped every 15 ¢ 20 steps and sucked in massive amounts of air. At one point, I noticed a pack of cigarettes on the ground, obviously chucked there by a hiker, finally convinced to give up smoking. Or maybe he just died right there and those fell out of his pocket as they lifted his body onto a gurney. Either way, he had given up smoking, I was sure.¢