North Carolina
Bought a 6 pack of beer in a dollar general, drank it in the next door McDonald's. Hiker time hits hard, 10pm feels like 2am now that im on the sun's schedule. Its been dropping below freezing most nights, ive taken to sleeping with my electronics and water inside my sleeping bag to keep them from being damaged. I did the first true leg of the trail, from the approach at amicalola falls to mountain crossing at neel gap by myself in 4 days.. then I cheated and skipped 40 miles. My ex-coworker Ryan(trail name garfield) and his friend Max who ive met (trail name grasshopper) started 5 days ahead of me, and instead of doing what would have turned into multiple weeks of trying to catch up to them i just took a bus and met them ahead. Since im already not really attempting a thru-hike, I dont feel bad about missing 40 miles of Georgia. We've been hiking together for 4 nights, but Franklin NC is our endpoint together. Grasshopper is headed back to New ...