Pics

I am taking a day off the trail and visiting some friends from grad school in Knoxville. I have hiked 163 miles in my firs 13 days on the trail. I was able to put together back to back bigs days, 18 and 16 miles, and I am feeling pretty good. At my friend Ben's house I have been able to download my pictures from the first two weeks on the trail, and hopefully I will be able to post some of them. The first picture is of me and Shaggy on top of Springer Mtn. I swam with Shaggy at Carleton and he hiked last year with the Iron Chefs.
This is me and Geek. Geek hiked the trail in 1990 with a cat and again in 2000. These days he throws a St. Patrick's Day party on the trail. He was handing out beer to all the thru hikers that passed. This was my first experience with Trail Magic.

This was my first day of horrible weather. I had tented the previous night and I learned a couple of valuable lessons about pitching my tent when it was going to rain. I ended up getting a little damp. So once it was light enough I started hiking. In about eight miles I got to a shelter. It was about 1pm. I was completely soaked. My rain jacket had soaked through from the outside and I had complete sweat through the shirt I was hiking in. But my feet were still dry. So I called it a day and sat inside the shelter watching the rain outside.

This is a sunset picture with a privy. Most, but not all, shelters have a privy, some have walls, some have roofs, some have both. This one did not have a roof, and you could almost look directly inside from the shelter. This was on top of Tray mountain in Georgia after my first 15 mile day.