North Carolina - and a note to friends who want to join them in NC

We have had word that Adam and Phil are in North Carolina and making great progress. They expect to make landfall in the Smokey Mtns within the next few days. They have asked us to cut back on the dried fruit portion in their home brewed trail mix as it was affecting them adversely... (!). The next food drop is to be posted on Monday of next week. The weather has been very weird, apparently. Early this week they went from getting a sunburn in the warm weather in the morning, and then a windburn in the cold. They got pretty wet going into Helen and camping in their tent last week, but they've dried out since. They lost the first group they were hiking with (they think they passed them when they stopped at a different town) and have been hiking off and on with two other guys. They have now experienced hiking in snow (6") and are also considering some night hiking.

Message from Adam and Phil: Any friends who are thinking about joining us in North Carolina should send an email or a message on the blog and please give us about a week's notice so we can arrange a meeting point!

This message has been posted by the Moms of Adam and Phil (the support crew).

Georgia

The first day was warm and rainy. There was the occasional thunderstorm rolling through. The terrain is pretty mountainous and beautiful. We have had a few days of sun with good hiking temps in the 40s. I saw the famous blue haze of the southern appalachians two days ago looking south from Blood Moutain.
We've met some interesting and really nice characters already. Some chefs from Tennassee, "Dart Man" who has already hiked the trail once, (he looks like a mountain man from the 19 century), and some other funny characters. Phil and I feel in pretty good shape, and we're exctied to continue the adventure. Just had my first hitch hiking experience inside the US. Went well.

Greetings from Helen, GA!

Hey everyone! Adam and I are in Helen, GA at the public library...just picked up our first food drop. The hiking's been great so far, we've already met a little crew of thru-hikers that we're currently leap-frogging with: Ringo, Flutter, Dart-man, and Yeddy. (We still are Adam and Phil.) The weather's been really interesting but generally nice. One day we were in all our winter gear eating trail mix in a valley, the next hour hiking on a ridge in t-shirt and shorts. The terrain isn't too rough yet, although we've been going up and down a few mountains here in the Chattahoochee. Two nights ago we stayed at the Walasi-Yi Hostel at Neel's Gap. It was a real neat little hiker hostel, where we bought some nice hot-pockets to fill our stomachs. Adam and I had a laugh at the extensive Hot-Pocket instructions, which even tell you to wait 2 minutes to eat it so you don't burn yourself, which put in our heads images of people on the edge of their seats, waiting for the moment they could slam a Hot-Pocket into their mouth. That's it for now, we gotta get off the computers and get back out to hitch-hike to the trailhead in the rain, which has not started. We'll try to update every few days.

-Phil

Getting to the Trail Head

Adam and Phil were dropped off at the airport with the backpacks in duffle bags, heading out to Atlanta. Phil's parents will drive them to the trail head from Atlanta. The adventure has begun!

Preparing food boxes

Trip Updates

Hey Everyone! Today we are going to fly down to Atlanta, GA. Tomorrow morning (Sunday the 17th) we're heading out to Amicola Falls State Park to start out at the trailhead. We've got all our stuff together, along with some fresh hats from our friend Aaron Duffy. Check them out: www.dufdesign.com/hats.htm. We'll try to keep posting updates on this thread.