Day 7 and 8 - what the hail is going on here?

Day 7 - 13.0 mi/68.4 mi tot
Day 8 - 4.5 mi/72.9 mi tot

So to update from the last post, that night about 1 am, one end of our tent decided to come unstaked and all of a sudden we had a tent on top of us. That was a fun trip out into the cold in the middle of the night that I probably could have done without. The next day (Tuesday) we decided to push on past our original goal and get all the way to Dicks Creek Gap and get a ride into Hiawassee to spend the night and do our resupply in the morning. During that wonderful hike we got to deal with wind, clouds, rain, BB-sized hail, more rain and even a little bit of sun.
Then came the highlight of the trip so far, the first pizza. We ordered the 100 pounder which is 100 slices of pepperoni and 1 pound of cheese on an 18-inch pizza. I ate most of it and Princess had a few slices too. Now that was a tasty pizza.
Decided on a short day today after resupplying and did about 5 miles to Plumorchard Gap Shelter where I am sitting in the the tent writing this now. We had a nice campfire and met a really nice thru-hiker named Eleanor and sat by the fire with her trading AT stories and other "real life" stories too. A nice easy day and some good company to end it with. She hikes fast though so she will probably dust us in the morning. But no more GA after tomorrow. 1 state almost down, 13 more to go.

- Snowfox

Sent on the go from my Peek

Day 6 - blame it on the rain (lip synced version)

13.0mi, 55.4mi. It turns out that my sleeping bag is well insulated both for heat and sound since I never heard the alarm on my watch go off at 6 so we got out a few minutes later than we had planned but were still able to cover 7.8 miles by lunch time. While we were at Blue Mtn sheter for lunch a nice little rain system blew in and we got a chance to test out our rain gear. The big gear award winner for the trip so far are the rain kilts as they did a great job keeping both of us dry during the hiking. for all the flak I will take for wearing a "skirt" at least I was dry. Got into Cheese Factory (about 13 miles south of US76) and managed t get the tent set up, water filtered, dinner cooked and cleaned up before the rain started again. Also figured out that our sleeping bags zip together so we were able to stay warm and dry in our tent whil it rained around us. The plan is to get almost to US76 tomorrow and catch an early shuttle into Hiawasee GA on Wednesday. Should be into North Carolina on Thursday or early Friday.

- Matt

Sent on the go from my Peek

Day 4/5

10.8mi, 42.4 mi. Spent all of day 4 sitting with ice on my knee & ankle, which actually worked out well as the weather was awful. Raining cats & dogs plus thunder/lightening. Met two guys from georgia, one was a paramedic who took a look at my knee and showed us how to wrap it. They were hilarious and really nice. We all got up early and headed out today as the weather had cleared. They were moving fast and ended up continuing past the shelter we had all planned to stop at, understandable as they were section hikers who had limited time to make their pickup. Made it to Low Gap shelter by 3pm and decided to call it a day. Met some guys who hiked and camped yesterday and spent today just drying out all their gear near a fire. Oh, I somehow managed to get poisen ivy on my right leg as well. It just wasn't my day today, hopwfully tomorrow will be better.
Princess

Sent on the go from my Peek

Day 2

12.3mi, 21mi total
Forgot to mention that we have trailnames. Snowfox and Princess. Mine was given to me courtesy of Dave. Matt's is from highschool lax. Long day today, going over sassafras mtn was a killer' and blood mtn tomorrow is not easy either. Twisred my ankle just before lunch and its pretty swollen. I stuck it in the creek but the water was so cold I couldn't leave it in for as long as I should. But I hiked 6.3 miles on it afterwards so I guess it's fine :-) Camped near GA60 tonight and hoping to make it 10mi to neels gap before the storm.

Princess
Sent on the go from my Peek

Day 1

7.8 miles from Springer, 8.7 mi total walked. Got dropped off @ Springer parking lot .9 mi north of the summit so hiked to the summit and started hiking south @ 10am. Made it to hawk mtn shelter around 4pm & decided to stop for the night. Dinner was pretty good, fell asleep at 8 while listening to the army play with weapons somewhere. My hips are bruised but hoping that goes away soon.if not there is always vitimen I ;-)

Sent on the go from my Peek

Day 0

Well I just checked the blog and realized that it's been over a month
since we last updated...sorry about that! It's been a little crazy as
we got into the final prep for our hike, but we've finally made it
Georgia. Matt's extremely nice coworker/friend drove us down to
Dahlanega (not sure about spelling) where we are staying overnight at
the Hiker Hostel, run by a couple who thru-hiked about 10 years ago.
This is basically a house (an extremely beautiful one) which they have
opened up to hikers. They run shuttles to various points along the AT
as well as different cities around here including Atlanta. So
tomorrow we are to be served a hearty breakfast at 8am and then hop in
a van with 6 other thru hikers and head for Springer Mountain.
Hopefully we have everything we need, but if not I guess we'll just
figure it out :-) I can't actually decide how I feel right now so I
don't think I'll try to explain, other than equal parts anxious,
excited and slightly terrified. Matt says that it's nice to be done
with talking/planning and finally be doing, but we'll see how tomorrow
goes! Oh, and it's raining. My mom asked what the weather forecast
for tomorrow was and I told her I didn't know and didn't care, I still
have to hike in it! :-) We'll be back in touch in a few days, thanks
to everyone for all their help and good wishes.