Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! (Well…maybe just Bears!)

I didn't sleep much through the night. I had bears on my mind.

I'd though about the night before and how we hung our bear bag. I realized we'd done something wrong. It was really dark and raining by the time we hung the bag. The way it works is you tie one end of the rope to a rock and the other end to your food bags. We did this. Pat, the owner of a Junior College World Series Champs ring, did the pitching. He tossed the rock and attached rope up and over through a fork in the trunk. We then pulled the end of the rope with the rock, hoisting the bag up about 20 feet into the tree. The only problem is we hoisted the bag in the tree where two major braches fork out of the trunk. The bag should be about 10 feet out away from the tree. This was my mistake.

Again, I wasn't about to get out of my warm sleeping bag. But, I did have dreams about bears getting into my food! Don't forget, we had several pounds of cracklins up there. That's quite a treat for a Georgia bear!

So, the first thing I did this morning was check on the bear bag. There was no sign of bear tampering. I pulled the bag down, returned to my tent and started packing everything in to my bag. The weather was still a little rainy and the temps were about 33. The wind had died down, and while it wasn't pleasant, it had improved a bit from last night.

Once packed up, Pat and I hiked out to the trail, hugged and said our goodbyes. It was really great to have Pat along on the trip in those first few days. It was comforting and he was a big help in getting me up to the trailhead.

It was about 8:40 AM, and Pat headed north back to the parking area, and I headed south to the official terminus of the trail. I took a picture of the Southern Terminus plaque. It was very quiet and peaceful, and I was the only hiker there. That surprised me a bit. I am not sure why. I guess I thought there would be a ranger there, checking people in, or something. As I headed north, officially starting my hike, I thought to myself “you dope, this isn't Astroworld".

As I passed through the parking area, I thought about Pat again, missing his company, and thinking about all of the many things from home I was missing; my friends, Firefly and everyone there, my family, and especially Kelli my girlfriend and my sweet little rat dog, Chole. But I quickly put those thoughts aside and focused on the miles I'd hike ahead.

I looked at the map and noted two shelters ahead. Considering the weather wasn't letting up much, I was hoping to stay in a shelter tonight. Packing a wet tent isn't much fun. It would be nice to just roll out my sleeping bag for the night.

After looking at the map and AT Thru-hikers companion, I noted two options. Stover Creek shelter was about 2.5 miles up the trail and Hawk Mountain shelter was about 7.5 miles up the trail. At this point I would hike to Stover Creek, consider how I felt, and then decide on an option.

I was probably hiking a little faster than I'd planned. My strategy was slow and steady for the first few weeks. I'd met up with a group of Florida U students. They were doing a 30 mile hike as a school project. As I made my way back down the trail from the terminus, they were leaving the campsite and were about to get started. I chatted with them for a moment, and they let me go ahead of them. I wasn't sure about this, because I didn't want them to pass me later. But they insisted. Their courtesy made me feel like I needed to stay head of them, so I hiked at a pretty good pace. I felt pretty good, so this wasn't a problem.

I arrived at the Stover Creek shelter and felt great, so I decided on option B; hike up to the Hawk Mountain shelter. About a mile further at Three Forks, my dogs were barking, so I pulled over to change my socks and put some mole skin on a few hot spots on my feet. The Florida group caught up to me. It turns out their group split into two smaller groups. This group, the northbounders, was hiking from Springer Mountain to Blood Mountain. The southbound group was hiking from Blood Mountain to Springer. This was pretty smart. They didn't need to worry about transportation. They'd just switch vehicles for the trip back to Gainesville, Florida.

With my feet better afoot, I continued toward Hawk Mountain. I was resting when Chris approached. I was surprised to be ahead of him. He'd got a late start. We chatted a bit and he told me that he had a trail name. It was Eagle Foot. He'd found an eagle's feather earlier, and thought the name was fitting.

The miles were starting to catch up to me and I started to question my decision to pass up Stover Creek. My strategy was to rest often. And so I did. This gave about 10 hikers the opportunity to pass me. They were encouraging, and insisted that I wasn't far from the shelter. I finally asked “What's not far mean?"

“Oh about two miles" one replied. It's still not late, and after a bit of hesitation, I thought I would try to make it. However, I was still a bit skeptical about getting a spot at the shelter. I'd been passed on the trail by about 15 hikers, plus the gang from Florida U, all destined for Hawk Mountain.

At about 5:00 PM the only thing I could see was the ground. It had been raining on a off all day. My posture near the 8 mile point was hunched over with my eyes focused on the trail just a few feet ahead of me. It seemed I was approaching the shelter, but for all know I could still be “almost there". (I learned quickly; one man's mile is another's three miles.) So I stopped and pulled out my GPS. I'd just climbed a very steep section and a pit stop was in order.

It appeared the shelter was only about 1000 feet ahead. At that time, Eagle Foot came along. I'd asked how he was doing, secretly hoping he was struggling too. Instead, he told me that the last “up" was his favorite part of the hike so far. He was a young man of about 26, I guessed. He had a really good, calm and polite demeanor about him. I liked that about him. Even though I was a bit disappointed in his pleasure, I was inspired by his attitude. I gave my legs the pleasure of a few more minutes rest, and started up to Hawk Mountain. After about 30 minutes, I still hadn't seen the side trail to the Hawk Mountain shelter. I pulled out my GPS and realized I'd passed it by about half a mile. It was getting late and I didn't want to backtrack. Plus, considering all of the hikers ahead of me destined for the Hawk Mountain shelter I figured I'd find a full shelter.

I found a campsite off the trail, down in a gully. It had a flat area down near the creek, and it took me about 15 minutes to find it. It was about 200 feet off the trail and nearly straight down. I didn't even want to think about getting back up it with pack in the morning. But it was better than continuing to hike.

By the time I set up my tent it was getting dark and the rain had turned to snow. It was snowing pretty hard as I set up my tent and tossed everything inside. Interestingly, as long as you're hiking, you don't really notice the cold. However, once you stop, you get a quick dose of reality. So I quickly ate, hung my bear bag and then jumped into my tent. I wasn't sure how cold it was, because my watch will only give accurate temps after it's been off my wrist for 15 minutes. But it must have been getting down into the 20's.

Even though the terrain was the flattest spot in the area, my campsite was still on an incline. So every once in a while I'd have to scoot back up toward the top. That was the case most of the night for my sleeping bag. I'd wake up in the nigh with my feet pressed against the bottom of the tent. And then I'd have to wiggle back up to the top. This had a positive impact, as it helped to keep me warm.

By about 7 it was frigid, and my watch had a temp reading of 22 degrees. I was eager to get zipped up into my bag. By now, I was shivering and afraid of getting hypothermia. So I zipped up, pulled off all of my clothing and tucked into my bag as many articles of clothing as I could find. I warmed up a bit, enough to fall asleep. I just hoped it wouldn't get too cold that night. My bag was only rated for 15 degrees.