First day on the trail

Yesterday on Thursday WE STARTED OUR HIKE!!!

Thursday morning we organized all our pack stuff and sprayed our clothes with permethrin (something that keeps the ticks off of us) and got ready to finally hit the trail. We took our last hot shower and ate a yummy hot breakfast and enjoyed a hot cup of coffee before leaving for our trip. It was about a 4 hour drive till we got some lunch and stopped at Walmart for a few last minute supplies. It was a crazy feeling having Hans drop us off at Amicalola Falls to start our hike and seeing the truck leave. After all this planning its actually for real now!

When we got there we sat in on a class they were having to go over the basics of hiking the trail. Till we sat through that and got registered we got a pretty late start…around 4ish in the afternoon.

Here we go!! Our picture under the arch at the beginning of the approach trail.

We hiked up to the Amicalola Falls which were so beautiful. We climbed 604 steps to the top so we were pretty tired but it was so worth it since the view was gorgeous. Since we got such a late start we just hiked 1.7 miles to one of the first camping spots. It was pretty chilly too somewhere in the 40s. We got there in good time to set our tent up and get everything set up and eat supper. We also have to hang all our food so the bears and mice don’t get to it. Setting up camp and taking down camp usually takes a bit of time but I’m sure in a week or so we will have more of a system that works well for us. It was a cold night close to 30 degrees and pretty windy where we slept so its pretty cold here for it being the south.

Today we finished the approach trail so technically we weren’t even hiking the A.T. yet but today we got to the top of Springer Mountain and took our first steps on the Appalachian Trail.

We reached the top of Springer Mountain!

We hiked a total of 7-1/2 miles today which really isn’t very much but we are trying to take care of ourselves, especially our feet, as our bodies get used to hiking and carrying a pack. We had a beautiful day to hike today…it was still a little chilly but much warmer than yesterday and was nice to hike in. We stopped here pretty early at one of the shelters along the trail where we will just give our bodies a bit of a rest and just hang out with some of the other hikers. Usually at the beginning of the trail its super crowded with people…We didn’t meet as many people as I expected but we got to meet people as we hiked and when we would stop to eat or get water. It’s just so good to finally be out here hiking…its been nice and sunny and its such a friendly nice community of people out here. I hear rain is in the forecast for tomorrow so we’ll see how that goes.