06-02-16

So, I got up at 2AM and I was out of the shelter by 3:45. Made my way to the southern terminus, Springer Mountain. When I got there I called Sammy and let him know my solar charger was not working at the moment so I had no charge left in my phone. All I needed was for him to verify that when I hit the Spot Tracker on, which I thought was 4AM, it was actually tracking me. Unfortunately, he was barely awake and his internet was not functional either. The two of us were a pair, I tell ya. Finally, I threw caution to the wind and said I was just going to start walking and hope it was tracking. Sammy said he would call me back when he had confirmation.

Eventually, Sammy did call and all was well. I didn’t see anybody on the trail for hours. It was dark and quiet. In the early afternoon I started to get a bit tired and hungry, so I made my way to a clearing off the trail and set up cooking. Maybe half into my production, an old guy (Grandpa) and his 16 year old grandson (Veddar) stopped also. They were asking about the next spring, which I knew nothing about, but they decided that spot looked like a good place to take a break too.

I packed up my stuff once I was done and wished them well. We sort of leapfrogged from there on the trail a few times.

At the next break, I ended up chatting with Chance (Spoon Fed), his dad Greg (Froggy) and a girl they were tagging along with, Ashley (Fickle Goat). I ended up also tagging along with this group. We hiked a long day, then stopped for the evening at a picture perfect spot on the trail. In fact, someone had spent a huge amount of time prepping the firewood for us, plus it had an extraordinary view. Everyone said it was fire karma since earlier in the day I had prepped firewood at a site near Blackhawk Shelter.

At camp, Chase let me use his phone charger. Also, I started noticing my bug spray wasn’t quite cutting it. I was starting to get welts from bites all over me. Made a list for the outfitter, this included new bug spray. Crashed for the evening with the intent of getting up early once again.