I started this journey in October of 2008, with aspiration of finishing in one trip. The plan was to start at the GA-NC border and south bound to Amicalola Falls in 5 days. Well it didn't quite work out that way. I started at the border was feeling great until the end of the second day when I twisted my ankle. I was about 7 miles from Neel's Gap when I camped for the night. When I woke up in the morning my ankle was huge swollen and I was completely out of duck tape. I ran into a guy headed north early on the first day who had a sprain and I used the tape patching up his ankle. So I struggled and limped the 7mi. to Mountain Crossing at Neel's Gap and called a shuttle to take me to my truck. Section 1 ended at 37 miles and a limp.
So for the next go round the plan was to continue from Neel's Gap heading south to the falls at the end of May 2009, about 38 miles. To add to the fun, I would be bringing along my daughter Christin. This is what she wanted to do for her 8th birthday. We had been training for a couple of months and got her all the gear she would need. I needed her to be able to do at least 10 miles a day with her own pack. Her endurance really surprised me and she was able to do it with no problem. We were dropped off at the Mountain Crossing hiker hostel and headed out the next morning. From Neel's Gap it's strait up 2 miles to the top of Blood Mountain and on top of it all it was raining. We endured all day through the rain and mud, then camped at 9.5 miles in. About 10:30 that night it came a raging thunderstorm and had no sign of stopping. Christin made the decision to call off the rest of the trip and we called home to be picked up the next morning at Woody Gap about 3 miles away. Sleeping was rough almost the entire night because the rain and wind was so loud against the tent. We made it to Woody at the same time my wife was pulling into the parking lot, perfect timing. Section 2 ended with 12 miles completed.
I had 28 miles remaining to finish my task. I had little delay due to getting deployed to Iraq for 6 months January through July 2010. The last weekend of my vacation was Labor weekend (Sep 2010) and I decided to go for it. I invited along my friend Matt to join me and he brought his dog Crockett. This time I planned for us to start at the Amicalola Falls State Park and head north to Woody Gap. 8 miles of approach trail, 20 miles of AT and 3 days to do it. The weather outlook was great, with low temperatures in the coming days due to a hurricane moving in to the North Carolina coast. The trip went quite well, except for Matt getting tangled up with a nest of angry ground hornets on the second day. His spirits were down after getting stung 7-8 times on the head, neck, face, back, and arms. He quickly came around and was ready to get back down the trail. The nights were cool but not freezing and we made good time. We finished early on the third day, concluding my journey to hike the Georgia section of the AT.
