Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 5, Monday, 3/21 – I went to sleep at 7:30pm yesterday, and slept a full 12 hours. It was glorious. I ate muesli with craisins for breakfast, broke down camp, and started hiking at 9:00. I didn’t run into another person until about noon which is as much alone time as I have had so far.

I met Liz, Brooklyn, and Rockin Robyn. Brooklyn is 10 years old and has wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail since she was 5 years old. Liz homeschools Brooklyn which makes this all possible. Liz also wouldn’t be hiking the trail if it wasn’t Brooklyns dream. What a thing to do for your kid, moms are the best.

Rockin Robyn owns an alligator business with her husband back in Florida. She got her Trail name when she hiked Blood Mountain during the storm, broke her phone, and kept on rocking. Rockin Robyn and I hiked together, met up with Aaron along the way, and us 3 finished the day at Blue Mountain Shelter. It was another 12 mile day today, which puts me at mile 50.

I realized too late that my calf got pretty burnt during the hike today. I didn’t think I would need sunscreen, but I’ll pick it up when I resupply in Hiawassee the day after tomorrow.

There’s a storm coming through on Wednesday. It’s kinda fun listening to all the chatter about other hikers plans for the rain. Many people getting off trail for a day or two, and a lot of the hiker hostels filling up. It looks like 10-15 mph wind which is very manageable. It also isn’t forecasted to rain overnight, which means I won’t have to break camp in the rain, so I plan on hiking through.

A lot of people stopped at Blue Mountain Shelter, here’s all the food hanging safely away from the critters