April 27 Day # Twenty Something

I started out the day accompanied by some celebrity hikers. I had the privilege to hike two miles with my parents, my aunt, and my cousin. Since they were going to hike two miles with me on the AT they had to be given trail names.

From left to right we have George “Asscargo”, yours truly “The Kid”, Janis “Moonshine”, Aunt Peggy “Peg Leg”, Nancy “Badass” (I think she gave herself that name), Moe (not pictured) “Über”.

As we began our two mile long journey through the woods of North Carolina it quickly became apparent that these celebrity hikers were not joking around. One of the first conversations we had was whether or not we were going to find berries (or as some people call them “burries”) in the woods. Next, I’m pretty sure we broke down the science of walking downhill, look for a research paper coming out soon. I’m pretty sure that these hikers took more pictures in these two miles than I did in the first two hundred miles.  So after a grueling two mile hike, we come out looking like this.

I’m giving some sort of victory gesture because we didn’t lose anyone in the woods, wait, where is my Dad!!???

Once the celebrities got off the trail it was time to get down to business. I had forgotten that the “gaps” typically mean huge uphills to start the day. Good thing for Aunt Peggy’s “energy balls”, I ate about five of them an hour into my hike. I was determined to set up camp on top of Max Patch, I was told that is a must do on the AT. A thunderstorm rolled through around 5pm,I got a little wet (didn’t break my phone, so that’s a win for me) but was able to set up camp on the top around 6pm. I talked with a few day hikers and everyone said I should be fine for the night. Come 2am there was a somewhat severe lightning/rainstorm that passed through. I was in my tent trying to get some sort of signal on my phone to check the radar. This made me rethink my decision to camp on top of a flat mountain. Definitely not my best nights sleep on the trail so far. I made it through the night okay and got some good sunrise pictures.

Once we (Summer Breeze, hammocked near the top, cool dude who knows a ton about hiking) watched the sunrise I had to go back to sleep. I woke up around 10am to about 25 ladies in a hiking group around my tent. I think some of them were even taking pictures of me. I awkwardly got out of my tent and tried to explain my self. These ladies were super kind, as I was given butterfingers and some sort of fiber bar. I also acted as their group photographer.

Good day of hiking. Just triple check weather forecasts.