Day One

Woke up at 6:30 after a somewhat restless night, the kind you have when you are excited or nervous about the coming day.  The sun didn’t get up until 7 so I got showered and some breakfast before setting off.  The restaurant at the hotel was a big open cafeteria with big windows looking out into the forest.  Perched on the side of the mountain it offered a great view.  There were a few groups of three to four hikers scattered about the restaurant.  

Weather forecast is great.  Low of 43 and high of 64 with mostly sunny skies.  Right out of lodge I met Sandy and Gary.   They are from Franconia, NH.  Sandy is attempting a thru hike but Gary is just hiking for five days.  Sandy is originally from Nantucket but moved to Franconia.  Her license plate is mtnmrd (Mountain Mermaid). Sounds like a trail name to me.  In addition to being very friendly, they seemed like experienced backpackers so I was happy to hitch on with them and hiked with them all day.  Being with experienced hikers will hopefully keep this rookie out of trouble.  Off we go.

After a while we finished the approach trail and began the official AT at Springer Mountain.

Not as many hikers today as I expected.  I think we came across about 12 others. Stopped at Black Gap shelter for lunch and visited my first trail privy.  Yep, they are pretty rude but I didn’t have to dig a cat hole.  We camped at a site about 1.4 miles before the Stover Creek Shelter for the night at about 4pm.  In the sleeping bag to sleep by 8pm sundown.  While we climbed some peaks the views were limited by trees although the foliage has not bloomed in the upper elevations yet.

About a mile prior to stopping for the day I encountered my first trail magic while actually on the trail curtesy of Montain Squid.  So we did about 8.5 miles today with some good elevation gain.  Tomorrow figures to be more down hill or flat than up.  We are expecting another good weather day. :-)

Mountain Squid