First DayOff

Hi Everyone

We are in Hiawssee GA at the Cloud 9 Hostel, I think they even have a website, but not sure what it is. We said we were going to take a day off a week and this is the first day off we have taken since we started hiking from Amicloa State Park last Thursday. We hiked the 10 miles up the approach trail to Springer Mountain. The key word here is up. We signed in on the top of Springer mountain with the caretaker and headed down the trail. We were the 12th and 13 thru hiker of the day to sign in and the 300th of the year or there abouts.

We have been averaging about 10 miles per day. the weather has been very cooperative. we have had cool evenings and sunshine and temps of 45 -60 during the day - perfect for hiking, temperatures at night have been down to 20 a few times and we are working on keeping Patty Warm. The hiking is tougher than we thought it would be, you are either going up to 5000 feet or coming down from 5000 feet. Very little flat. The hiking poles are almost a necessity and have proven to be very helpful. Our packs are a little heavy but we are trying to get rid of anything unnecessary.

We have used the tent every night as opposed to staing in the shelters. We have stayed at the shelters, but still camped a few times, but the nicest camp sites are away from the shelters and near water.

We spent our Easter Sunday Lunch on the top of Blood Mountain, the highest mountain in GA at 4700 feet. It was a great experience and a very beautiful day. Then we came down to Neels Gap and were able to take a shower at the hostel. We didn't stay in the hostel as the quarters were a little close. We did have breakfast there and then took off.

We have found our pace. It is easy as I just let Patty lead and go here pace which is pretty agressive. She is very tough and doing great. We are moving with a group of hikers who are all about our speed. We see them at some campsites but don't usually see many other people while we are hiking on the trail.

We have a total of 68 miles on the AT and the 10 miles on the approach trail so we are averaging better than 10 miles per day. As I said before it is a lot tougher then we thought it was going to be.

I am unable to upload any photo's from this computer at the request of the Hostel, so you will have to believe we are still looking fine.

If Patty and I are on your E mail list, please do us a favor and only send us personal e mails and try not to pass on any of those chain e mails. It just takes too long to go through them all and I am just deleting them anyway.

We are going to an All you can eat Mongolian Grill for this afternoon and will also resuply some food stocks in town. I might even have a beer.

I will see if we can post a little more later today. If not we will be out of GA and into North Carolina on Saturday. Hopefully I can post from Franklin NC when we pick up our first mail drop on Monday of next week.

Take care for now.

Lucky Dog and Red Dog