Date: 2007-11-15
From: Gooch Mountain SHelter

To: Hawk Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 7.3
Weather: scattered clouds

Contact's Parents would be at Springer in two days and we were only 14.9 miles from there so we decided to do two 7.4 mile days. In the morning, still at Gooch Mountain Shelter, I got to talking with J-Rock(picture). He is on inactive reserve from the Marines. He was part of the Marine assault on Falluja in Iraq in 2004. He could be called back to active duty sometime in the next two years. One hiker had said to him that he had met other ex marines to which J-Rock replied " There are no ex marines. You are always a marine." He looked liked he wouldn't have any problem going back to Iraq if called upon. His gear looked like it weighed about 80 pounds. He said a marine could carry up to 150 pounds on an extended mission and be able to do combat. He reads a lot and I think he would like the Earl Shaffer Book "Following Spring" since Earl Shaffer hiked the AT after doing combat in the Pacific Islands during WWII. I had lived in Forest Service Barracks the previous year and had eaten several MRE's and didn't like them very much at all. Turns out that J-Rock loves MRE's! I was sorry I didn't leave that MRE for him at Neels Gap but it turned out he didn't particularly like the imitation pork rib MRE so it was ok. He liked the Beef Enchilada, Roast Beef, Turkey, and Beef Stew MRE's. He said to watch out for the Hot Dog MRE which the Marines called the "Fingers of Death". One of his favorite things to eat over in Iraq was something he made called "Ranger Pie" this was made by mixing together various MRE packets. Here's the recipe: Crush up some crackers, add dryed creamer, sugar packets, peanut butter, hot cocoa powder and some water. He just loved Ranger pie. He wore two knives, one on each hip which he called his friends. He said that they helped him get through the war. He also wore cammo and leather hiking boots (high top basket ball shoes for camp shoes). Also at the shelter were a father and son( Fred and Alex) who just hiked in a mile from the nearest road to go target shooting with their hand guns. They had about six different kinds of hand guns between them including 40 cal. Glocks. They had about 70 pound expedition packs. I was surprised to see them pull out four presto logs from their packs to have a campfire. This was definitely different from thru hikers who do everything to trim off even a few ounces. The father and son got up at 4:40 am and made themselves a campfire after the rainstorm had passed but the rest of us just stayed in our sleeping bags. With such a short mileage day ahead, we didn't head out till 10:30 am towards Hawk Mountain Shelter. The way had a lot of ups and downs which characterizes the Georgia portion of the AT. Highlife was taking a break at the shelter when we arrived then continued hiking on. This shelter is known to be part of Army Ranger practice maneuvers. At 5pm there was a huge explosion within a mile of the shelter that shook the ground. We then saw helicopters off and on but no troops ever came by the shelter which we were hoping they would do. This shelter had a good water supply too. We had been told that the Georgia section of the trail was almost totally dry but it didn't turn out that way for us. We were thinking we would face 30 mile dry stretches.In the shelter journal I noticed that J-Rock had spent five days there.