It's been 4 days since the start of my A.T. journey and I'm still alive! Although the last four days have been some of the physically most demanding of my life I think I am adjusting well to this sudden shock of living healthy.
The first day was the toughest no doubt about it. There where two options for the start of the A.T. You could either do it from a
parking lot 1 mile away from the actual start of the trail or you could do what is called the approach trail. Which is an extra 8.8 miles and includes 600 steps at the beginning. Stupidly I agreed with Andreas (the guy from denmark, read last blog) to do the approach trail. Two other people from the hostel we stayed at where also idiotic uh I mean brave enough to endure the extra milage. So the four of us began our A.T. There was Tim, an older guy about 40 from Kansas, Basil, 23 years old from New Hampshire and me and andreas. It was pretty clear Andreas had the best legs of all of us but I felt I kept up pretty good. Basil had a hard time because he had a 45 lbs (20 kg) backpack which is quite a lot. Tim and I had a good 35 lbs (15 kg) to carry and Andreas had the lightest gear with 28 lbs (12 kg). By the end of the day we had covered 12 miles in 6 hours and stayed at a nice wooden shelter (most shelters are like wooden cabins with one side gone).
I found out training at home was more then useless since at home everything is flat and here you are constantly climbing or descending.
The other days where less hard because we decided to take it a bit more easy because we had four days of food anyways and the next food stop (were I am now) wasn't that far away. I've learned a lot from other hikers about long term hiking, camping and looking out for bears (haven't seen any yet!) and I hear a lot of good stories as well. On day four we had to climb Blood Mountain (actual name) and on the way up we met a 76 year old lady doing the same! How amazing is that, doing stuff like that at that age.
Anyway I couldn't upload pics from my camera so I only have one I took with my phone on top of Blood Mountain.
The first day was the toughest no doubt about it. There where two options for the start of the A.T. You could either do it from a
I found out training at home was more then useless since at home everything is flat and here you are constantly climbing or descending.
The other days where less hard because we decided to take it a bit more easy because we had four days of food anyways and the next food stop (were I am now) wasn't that far away. I've learned a lot from other hikers about long term hiking, camping and looking out for bears (haven't seen any yet!) and I hear a lot of good stories as well. On day four we had to climb Blood Mountain (actual name) and on the way up we met a 76 year old lady doing the same! How amazing is that, doing stuff like that at that age.
Anyway I couldn't upload pics from my camera so I only have one I took with my phone on top of Blood Mountain.
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