By Keppy
If you look at a map of the Appalachian Trail, most will only show the miles as the crow flies. But if you’ve ever been on some parts of the AT, you know that some of those miles are very, very wrong.
For example. After I left Neel Gap, a few days ago, I came upon two people that I had camped with before. Their Trail Names were Ridge and Cool Hand and they were doing a spring break hike. Ridge is seven years old. Ridge is getting bored and they have just stopped for a few minutes. They latch onto me and I tow them up one mountain and down the other side to Tesnatee Gap. On the other side of the gap is another mountain that goes. Straight. Up.
It can’t be that bad, right? Wrong. After about fifteen minutes, we can no longer see the parking lot but we have barely gone forward as the crow flies.
And another question. Who puts a shelter 1.4 miles off the trail? Evil. The trail to the shelter goes down a mountain, then in the morning you go back up the mountain and then down!! So unfair. Plus, they didn’t put a roof on the privy.
Anyway, I’m done with my rant now.
I am at Unicoi Gap and taking a well deserved zero day (mom didn’t think I would be there until today and I was there yesterday. Feeling smug.)
Hoping to be into North Carolina soon.
Bye for now!
A.T. Journey Blog 
Yay, an update! With pictures!
A question: How do you deal with the heavy wind and rain?
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I put my layers on and hoof it to the next shelter. Usually the shelters are about 7 miles apart so depending on when the rain/wind starts, it’s not usually too far. There was a lot of cold wind today and yesterday. I had a wool shirt, wool sweater, and down coat on and could have put my rain coat and rain pants on if I needed to. I also had fleece leggings on for most of the day.
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I think I will have to get Keppy her own gravatar soon, so her readers can tell the difference between us, but this is Heidi (Mom) and I wanted to add that we also have both a heavy duty winter coat with insulated pants, and a lighter duty water proof shell in the camper, just waiting for the right moment to be needed. We’ve found that most hikers pay very close attention to the weather and will pull off the trail when storms are predicted, preferring to spend a ‘zero day’ hunkered down in town rather than carry EVERY THING with them.
Keppy does carry an emergency bivy, in the event that she is unable to reach a shelter or road and has to shelter in place in unanticipated extreme weather. An emergency bivy is like a human sized foil bread warmer, and will reflect your own body heat back to you.
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Glad to hear your doing well.
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Glad to here your doing well. Hope your having fun too. Remember Eowyn saying deppy and how we joked “give me deppy or give me deafth” hope I made you smile.
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You made me laugh. I am also amazed that you managed to spell almost everything right in that sentence. I usually spell “death” without the “f” but hey, I used to make up words. 🙂
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[…] We’ve only been here for a day but I’ve already seen lots of people I know from the trail. I saw The Dude here, as well as Ridge and Cool Hand, the seven year old and his dad. I mentioned them in Famous Last Words: “It can’t be that bad.” […]
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I could not resist commenting. Very well written!
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Love it!
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