Date: 2009-03-13
From: Hawk Mountain Shelter, GA 

To: Gooch Mountain Shelter, GA
Miles today: 7.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Weather COLD and wet (Started raining mid-day. Light rain all afternoon, raining harder now.) Cell Phone No signalOld Goat will become "OG"and Check 6 will become "C6" in our notes to make it easier and quicker to type our notes.OG note: We left the shelter to start hiking at 9:28 am. Just as we reached the trail from the Blue Blaze trail from the shelter we met two local men. We had a nice chat and had to move on as we started to feel chilled. Let me explain the blue Blaze comment. The Appalachian Trail is marked with a White Stripe of paint 4 inches by 2 inches, this denotes the direction we will be following to Maine. The side trails that go to shelters, water sources or other places off the AT are denoted by Blue Blazes the same size as the White Blazes.We met the first test on the AT when we went over Sassafras Mountain. We climbed 700 feet elevation in about a mile, which is pretty steep at this stage of the hike. By this time it was raining and we had our rain gear on. We had to be careful not to overheat and sweat, we didn't want to get wet inside the suits.We reached this shelter about 3:00pm, it was an oasis from the rain. This shelter has a covered front area, the picnic table is under cover so we had lots of room to stay dry and move around.The rain has helped drop the temperature dramatically, I'll guess we are in the low 40's and still dropping. We both got out of our hiking clothes and put on our thermal clothes and down jackets. I am so glad we have the down jackets, that was a lesson learned from my last thru hike.Dinner was a Knorr Side with chicken and vegetables. We pour 3 cups of boiling water into the pouch with the meal, we then put the whole thing into a cozy and let it sit for 20 minutes. So far the meals have been filling and good.We are in our sleeping bags and ready to fall asleep. I'm sitting upright and leaning on the shelter wall, C6 is laying down reading a book. She has already written her entry below so she doesn't need to be sitting up. C6's notes:In case anyone is wondering, our cell phone service is AT&T.Hard day today. Don't know how cold it was, or is, but it's at least below 50 because we could see our breath all day. (Someone at the shelter said it was 43 degrees.) As long as we were hiking, I was ok, but every time we stopped I'd get real cold. When I started shivering during one of our stops, I got scared. Not being able to get warm scares me a lot. We were warm in our tent last night. The tent blocked the wind (which blew all night long!), and our layers and provisions for warmth were plenty. Didn't need to use any hand/foot warmers. In fact, both of us found we were too hot at times last night.I'm sitting here with all my layers on, and very comfortable right now. Aidin (Red Leg) is here with us. Lori (Finch) and Tom (Hightop) decided to hike to a pickup point and go back to The Hiker Hostel for the night. Neil just arrived for the night, and I suggested "Old Gear" as his trail name because he has talked about carrying a heavy pack because he's using his old gear, which weighs more than modern gear. He seemed to like the name, but it's yet to be seen if he decides to keep it.Two guys from Israel just got here, too. We haven't talked with them much yet...hopefully we'll get to do that soon.People arriving, socializing to do, so I'm outta here for now. It's a couple hours later now. Have had some great conversations with the guys from Israel...well, one of them (Jonathan - pronounced "Yonathan.") He introduced himself as "Yoni." His hiking partner doesn't speak much English (yet). Yoni said his family speaks English at home. While speaking with him, it's easy to forget he's not American. Fun conversations and very nice people at the shelter tonight. Old Goat & Check Six