Some folks took off way earlier this year in North Georgia, to hike to Maine. Some had never even backpacked before! I was fortunate in that I had somebody to set me straight about the gear I needed. My brother Paul, already had logged over 700 hours on the AT in his life. That meant weeks of preparation, good gear, and a plan for carrying the least weight possible. As it turned out, preparation was very important. Even as late as the day before we flew out to the trail, we were sitting on the floor of my living room, trying to find items we didn't really need. One thing I almost left home was my fleece hoodie...who would need that on top of a mountain in May? Did we really need 2 different water purifiers?
We were flying to Roanoke, VA and getting met by Homer, the Hiker shuttle guy at the airport. He was an experienced Thru-hiker, and was to take us out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains and drop us off. Our job was to hike back to civilization before our food and water ran out. It turned out that Homer was sick and his wife met us and then dropped us off. I can easily remember standing with Paul on that gravel road, nothing but woods and no cellphone service on either of our phones, thinking just how crazy that seemed.
This is a photo of Theresa (Homer's wife), Paul and I right before the hike. I remember taking this photo as a record of who was the last person with us, in the event we disappeared forever.
My idea was to camp right there, I mean it was already 6pm and I had enough adventure for the day. Then we saw two country guys preparing for a bonfire and whiskey camp right where I was planning to put my tent. Paul was gung-ho and wanted to climb the mountain in the dark. I was still in city mode and could not quite get used to the idea of going somewhere in the dark with wild animals and no place to sleep. It was a good thing that I had no idea of what was to come......
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