Days 1-5, Springer Mtn to rocky mtn

Wow! We've made it five whole days on the trail! Alive, but so tired each night, posting has been out of the question. I've been keeping a journal, too, so I won't forget to share any big details.

Day 1: we spent the night at hiker hostel before we left. Kind of pricy, but they shuttled us from north of the airport to the hostel, let us shop for stuff we needed, gave us a bunk, and fed us breakfast. Then they dropped us off at the point just north of Springer mountain. That's the start of the at. We hiked up the mountain, took obligatory pics, and started our for real journey! I was practically hyperventilating up the mountain. So scared/nervous. At about mile 4 it started to feel real.  We ran into a guy who was hiking to Springer to start, but he started in ft Lauderdale, so he'd been hiking for sixty some days already. We ran into him again on day 4. We stayed at a campsite about 9 miles in, putting our mileage for the day at about 10, nine of them official trail miles.

Day 2: while hiking we met a mom and her son, Corben, who're attempting to hike the trail, too. Jesse thinks his middle name is Dallas (5th element reference, yall). The hiking was fun, but uneventful. We hiked a mountain called sassafrass, which took 2246 steps to summit. It was really foggy the first two days. We were hiking right thru the clouds. The top of that mountain could have been a movie set for a horror film. We set up camp after about ten miles, so we'd officially hiked to mile marker 20 on the at. Then, it rained. Big thunderstorm. Started at about three am. Went to about 6. We'll write more about living thru storms later. Suffice it to say, the tent I sewed held but we had a river between our inflatable pads. The only things that got wet (thanks to drags and planning) were parts of our sleeping bags, which we hung to dry outside our packs on day 3. All in all, it worked out well. (Truth be told, were still hoping to dry a headlamp that was incidentally flooded during said storm...)

Day 3: after the storm and a poor night's sleep, I had little hope for the day. We pushed beyond my dreams of blood mountain shelter, the oldest standing shelter on the trail, down into mountain crossing outfitters. We supplied and decided to pay for a hostel stay since the hike down blood mountain was torture on our bodies. After a day that started at 3am and included over 11 miles, we didn't have the last mile or more to the next campsite in US. The hostel was not the best, but the people at mountain crossing were stellar. So was the fanta grape pop! We also ran into Corbin and his mom again there. They were also wet from the storm.

Day 4: (my fingers are cold and battery is running lower so this will be short). Left neels gap with one of the shelter kitties in tow. He hiked about .25miles up a hill with us and we had a trail kitty for a short time. Oh God he was cute. The rest of the day was hard but uneventful, and we pulled into our first shelter at low gap. We finally met other hikers, in sum there were 10 people and a dog! And the two weekend campers made a fire for us with their saw. We had fun chatting.

Day 5: we hiked about 11 miles, ending on top of rocky mountain here where I tell the tale. More when I can find a computer.

Also, please text if u want to get in touch with us. We've had much better luck with that than phone signal.