Appalachian Trail Hike - Day 1

Jill and I started our Appalachian Trail hike last week by getting up at four in the morning and driving to Devil Fork Gap, on the TN/NC border. We'd made arrangements with a guy at a local outfitters to pick us up and drive us to our starting point - my little Camry would stay in a gravel pull-off on the side of the road until we hiked the 56 miles back to her. The weather was sunny and clear and gorgeous by the time Jill and I pulled off to wait for our shuttle. We took a few pictures, watched some guys cut tree limbs away from power lines, and waited for our ride to show up.
The trail crosses 352/212 at this point, and heads north out of the woods (where we'd be coming from) over a stile, through a field and onward up to Maine. I was a little nervous getting started, but really just because I had never done anything like this before, like, ever, and had no idea what to expect. I've done lots of day hikes, and lots of car camping, but I've never hiked out somewhere with all my stuff on my back, never camped more than a short walk away from a road, and I'd never hiked more than maybe five or six miles in a stretch. We were setting out to do 56 miles, over eight days (we would actually wind up cutting this down to a quicker-paced five and a half days), and I had no idea if my body was up for the challenge. Or even what the challenge was, exactly.

Our shuttle driver Dan rolled up from Hot Springs, NC, a little town directly on the Appalachian Trail. He drove us the hour and a half to our starting point at Max Patch. As he drove, he talked. Constantly. He told us about a guy and a girl who hiked up to Max Patch one day, because the guy was going to propose to the girl at the top. They got to the top, a storm blew up, they both got zapped with lightning, the girl died, and the guy had to crawl back to the road because he couldn't use his legs. He also talked about hunting mushrooms (something I really really need to learn about), and collecting bee balm to make tea from (he pointed out the red flowers along the road) and about the reintroduction of elk to the region.

We arrived at Max Patch, hauled our packs out the minivan, and Dan drove off. And then up the hill we went!
It was basically a path that went straight up. We got to the top incredibly winded, sweaty and after all of 15 minutes or so of walking, wondering what in the hell we'd signed up for. Six days later, I can look back and say psh, poor little body hadn't gotten in shape yet. But for someone whose only physical activity is running 2 or 3 miles a few times a week...carrying a giant (wayyyy too heavy) pack up a hill in the hot sun wasn't quite the gentle introduction to backpacking I'd imagined.

We moved off over the hill, through a clearing, and down into the woods. It rained. We put on ponchos and pack covers, as it started to pour, and kept on walking. A flock of wild turkeys flew up out of a ravine as we walked through.

Jill bought a water pump, so once the rain let up we stopped and topped off our Nalgenes from a stream, where I almost stepped on the first of many salamanders we'd see over the next week. I kind of love reptiles and amphibians, and I got overly excited about this salamander and took a zillion pictures. How cool is he?!
Our first day's hike was only 7.5 miles, and we made it to Walnut Mountain Shelter by late afternoon. One of the best parts of the trip, and one I really hadn't anticipated, was the cool people you meet, eat dinner with, and then sleep next to, at the shelters. Our friends the first night were Nick, on the left in the photo, a guy from Australia trying for 1000 miles in the three months his visa lasts, and Seth and Rachel, a brother and sister from Asheville. Rachel was only 15, but made me feel like a huge baby for thinking our little seven mile hike was hard. She and her brother had done 20 miles that day, and she arrived with the most hideous collection of blisters I'd ever seen. Between her and her brother doing 20 miles that day, and Nick on his way to cover 1000, I realized I was going to have to push myself a lot harder if I wanted to cover 56 miles.

My first night sleeping in a shelter wasn't very comfortable, and I slept in fits and starts. There are mice in most of the shelters. We heard them running around the walls and across the sleeping platform, and I felt one run across my feet at one point. Nick had one run through his hair. There was a big rain storm all night, which was actually kind of soothing and made me feel safe. The noise of the rain on the tin roof drowned out any sounds from the forest that might have been scary, and I told myself that if it was pouring rain surely the bears would stay in their little bear dens and not come out. I had never slept this far away from civilization (I know 7.5 miles isn't exactly far, but from the middle of the woods it felt far), and it was a kind of cool feeling to wake up and realize that I hadn't died, I was safe and dry (thanks to a tarp we hung over the door) and I didn't need an apartment and a bed to sleep. It sounds obvious, maybe, but when you've really only ever slept in buildings, or in big roomy tents staked next to cars, it was a freeing thing to realize.