First day

Distance: 8.2 miles

Hit the road from Barnwell to my starting point in northern Georgia at about 8 a.m., Monday. My friend, Nick, came through huge and gave me a ride on his day off. It's a five-hour trip and there was a 10-mile climb up a dirt, mountain road to Big Stamp Gap.

From the gap, I had to hike "south" to get to the starting point at the top of Springer Mountain and then turn around and retrace my steps to start my trip.

I started shortly after 3 p.m., after meeting Teacher and Snackpack at the top of Springer. The grandma, Teacher, and her grandson, Snackpack, are from Rhode Island and are traveling along the trail, meeting hikers and hearing their stories as part of a home-school project for Snackpack. 

Those are their trail names btw. Hikers usually start with a trail name they choose or get labeled with one by other hikers.

Mine is Hova for now. If you know me, you know why.

Headed down springer and the hiking was easy going at first. The trail was smooth, flat and wide. I rolled into Hawk Mountain Shelter a little after 7 p.m. About a dozen hikers, and one dog, were there.

We all had to cram into the shelter - which has two levels and the lower level has two tiers - because bad weather was on the way. Since I was the last one to arrive for the night and everyone else had their spots picked out, I had to sleep on the lower tier of the first level next to the shelter opening.

When the storm hit around 10:30, it was loud and windy. Every few minutes a gust of wind would blow up the tarp stretched across the shelter opening and a blast of cold air and some rain would sweep through the shelter. It wasn't too bad though, and i got some decent sleep.

Good first day, on to the next one.

By the fire at hawk mountain shelter