four days down, 46 to go!

Hello All you peeps out there! M and I just arrived in Hiawassee, GA. A small town just south of the Georgia-North Carolina Border. The last four days were full of backpacking fun-ness. The trees down here are mucho big. I guess that's what lack of clearcutting will do to the vegetation. It's great to be back on the trail after a two year break!
It's been a stormy three nights. The first was just a sprinkle, The second has us a little skittish with thunder roaring to the south, and the third night it hit us hard. Luckily we were camped by a shelter and made refuge there while the worst of the storm blew through. It's great that the area's getting some rain. The whole region is in a severe drought at the moment and it's desperately needed. Most of the water holes on the map are completely dry, or little more than a trickle, making planning our hikes a little more difficult. Most of the time, we end up packing a lot more water than comfortable just to be sure we'll have it when we need it.


Other than that, the trip was pretty chill. Nice little 5 mile jaunts through the forests followed by beautiful and relatively clean campsites. I'm amazed at how good the sites look especially now, right after most of the thru-hikers have just passed. They're a clean and careful bunch!

Tonight we're spending the night in the local Holiday Inn Express. Special thanks to Lindsay and Dan for shipping out the first of my food packages. The applesauce exploded in transit, but other than that, all is good! Tomorrow morning M will be heading back home to NYC and I'll continue on the trail... Hopefully ending somewhere in Virginia. That is, as long as the trail loneliness doesn't set in!

One last note: Sprint service isn't all that reliable in the forests here so I can't check e-mail very regularly. If you want to get in touch quickly, the best way is voicemail to or text message to my cell phone.