Sunday, May 1st

Finished the video!

*Click here to watch*

         

Saturday, April 30th

We came in today and cranked out some work on the video. We just have a little left we need to work on but we're almost done.

Friday, April 29th

First day working on the video! We finally got to start today right after school and work on our video. We decided to do all the interviews with the music first, so we edited the interviews and put them in with some background music. We're planning on making it go back and forth between the interviews and us.

Thursday, April 28th

We brainstormed and came up with what songs we need to use for our video. We need instrumental songs for when we play the interviews so that you can hear the persons voice. Then, we want good music going on we we have us walking and when we show the really cool views we saw so we came up with pretty good songs for that.

Wednesday, April 27th

We emailed Mr. Silverman and met with him for about an hour. He told us how to use the program and it wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be. We uploaded all of our videos from our phones to the computer that we need to use and we put everything regarding our project in a folder on the computer. We imported all the videos onto the program and played around a little with some of our videos just to try it out. We're planning on starting the video Friday.

Tuesday, April 26th

We watched all the videos we took on the GoPro and on the phone. We then deleted the videos that weren't very good and the ones we knew we wouldn't put in the video. Now, we have all the videos we want to use on our phones. We need to email Mr. Silverman and ask him if we could use his nice video editing program because we don't really want to use iMovie. Hopefully, we'll start with the program tomorrow.

Monday, April 25th

I finished typing all of the blogs and posting them on the website.

Friday, April 22nd

Today we worked on posting the blogs on the website for each day. I have found that it takes awhile to copy everything we wrote down onto the website. But, I want to make sure I leave nothing out.

Thursday, April 21st

It was our last day. We woke up around 8:30 and took our time to get ready, but we were still quick and were out hiking by 9:15. We didn't make breakfast since we ate all of our food yesterday. We had to get to Bly Gap by noon because that is when our dads will be close to picking us up. We remember asking Sir Packs A Lot if there was a service road we could get picked up at at Bly Gap. He told us you pass the gnarled tree and there is a blue blaze trail on the left which takes you about 2 miles down the mountain and puts you in a neighborhood where you can get picked up. Both of our phones were 100% dead so we had no way of communicating with our dads. Also, the last thing our dads said was that they were picking us up at Charles Creek Road around noon. Charles Creek Road is about 7 miles from Bly Gap so we knew we would have to find someone with a phone and call our dads. We saw some people close to Bly Gap and asked if they could take a picture of me and James at the state line. We then asked if we could call our dads since we wanted to get picked up at the service road. The lady, who took the picture and gave us her phone, told us that she was 90% sure that we got bad information and that there is no trail that leads to a service road where we would get picked up. We decided we were going to trust Sir Packs A Lot and take the trail so we told our dads to call Top of Georgia for directions. Me and James took the trail and after what seems like forever we connected into a neighborhood. Sir Packs A Lot said 2 miles but it seemed more like 3 or 4 miles. Once we got to the neighborhood we were going to knock on someone's house and ask to use their phone to call our dads. Fortunately, right when we got to a house we saw my dad's car coming in our direction. We caught some good luck right there. Were now riding in the car with our dads, telling them all about our trip and talking about how great the Bobby's meal were about to get is going to be.

Wednesday, April 20th

Today we knew we had another easy hike since we were so far ahead of schedule. We slept in a little and made ourselves coffee, oatmeal, and pop-tarts. We were only about 6.5 miles from Bly Gap so we decided we could camp at Plum Orchard Shelter (an easy 2 mile hike). We took our time packing and got out of Bull Gap by noon. We took our time walking, then took a break for some lunch. We were eating, then two older men came to eat lunch with us. They said they were doing a 3 day backpacking trip. We had enough interviews and footage at the time so we stopped asking people to be interviewed. After the old men left a kind of strange bearded guy came and introduced himself as Square Peg. He thru hiked the AT last year and is doing it again this year. He told me I looked like a young Indiana Jones and told James he was looking a little bit like Rambo. We decided those would be our trail names: Dr. Jones and Rambo. We left and got to Plum Orchard. We set up our enos and were planning on taking a nap; however, James' eno ripped in half so he couldn't use his. We woke up and tried to use the propane for the burner but it was out. So, we built a fire and started making dinner. We ate our dinner and I'm in my eno getting ready to sleep.

Tuesday, April 19th

We woke up around 8 at our campsite, which was about 50 yards away from where the shuttle come to pick hikers up. Our goal was to catch an early shuttle to the lodge, buy some food there and then get on with our hike. We saw a shuttle across the street but we didn't get there in time so we had to wait for the next one. Before we left the camping spot we saw a rack that we could possibly grill something on over the fire. So we joked about grilling out some burgers. The next one came and we tried to get in but they said if you weren't planning on staying at the lodge then you have to pay $10 to get a ride. We didn't have cash on us so we decided we would try and hitch hike. But first, after the shuttle left, there were people with a lot of food at Dick's Creek. They are offering all the hikers free food in memory of their father who hiked the trail and then would always come out to Dicks Creek and give food to the hikers. We talked to them, got some food, then started hitch hiking at about 11ish. We failed and about 20 cars passed us until a construction truck picked us up and took us to the lodge. Conveniently, the construction truck was going to the lodge also. We went into the main den and talked to the ladies there. We bought about 3 sodas each and a huge pizza. At the lodge we told the ladies we are on a school project and we are interviewing hikers about their experience and what they love about the hiking community. They told us we should interview Bob, who is a triple crowner and owns the lodge. A triple crowner is someone who has thru hiked the AT, the PCT, and the Continental Divide. We interviewed him and he had some great things to say. We then asked if we could buy food here and resupply. They had a really small room with supplies in it. They didn't have much good food except some Spaghetti with meatballs Mountain House meals. We decided we could go into town today and go to Ingles and buy better food. So, we bought some Mountain House meals and left to hitch a ride in Hiawassee. We hitched a ride on our first try on this go around. A man named Jose, who was headed to Hiawassee because he owns a restaurant there, picked us up. Jose dropped us off at Ingles where we resupplied enough food for the last 2 days of our trip. We bought some burger meat too since we saw that rack earlier this morning. As we were about to leave Ingles with all of our food, James decided to charge his phone (mine was already pretty charged so I didn't need to). He charged his phone at the eating area and a kind old lay saw our packs and offered to give us a ride back to the trail. We gladly accepted since we thought we would have to hitch hike for awhile until getting a ride. Her and her husband took us back to Dick's Creek and she said she loves to give rides to hikers. We then ate lunch at the picnic area at Dick's Creek and we interviewed a guy named Corky, who we have leapfrogged* with over the past couple of days. We quickly went back across the street to get the rack and then we proceeded to Bull Gap which was about 2.5 miles from Dick's Creek. We purposely gave us an easy day today since we are way ahead of schedule. We also just resupplied so our packs were really heavy. We camped at Bull Gap where we set up the tent and grilled out burgers. A young guy named Alex came by and told us he might camp with us if the shelter isn't any good. He came back about an hour later and set up his tent near ours. We offered him a burger and we found out he just graduated from UGA and is attempting to thru hike. He seemed like a cool guy so we asked him stuff about college and what to expect. We didn't interview him because we felt like we have enough footage. After awhile we went back to our tent, put out the fire, then went to bed.

*Leapfrogging is when people pass each other over and over again on the trail.

Monday, April 18th

We woke up early, like around 7, and we started getting packed. We made the last bit of coffee and also made some oatmeal. We have some oatmeal, Ramen, a couple granola bars, honey, mac & cheese, and a tiny bit of sausage. We figured we would be fine for dinner tonight if for some reason we can't resupply. We finished breakfast and we were all packed up until a sort of young man came down to get water. We started talking and we found out he was an ex-soldier who completed 5 tours in Iraq. He was 37 and he was almost retired but still did a little work on the side. We decided he would be a great guy to interview so we did. He was planning on hiking 20 miles per day for 40 days and make it all the way to James River in Virginia. He then left, we filled up our water and went on our way. We hiked for 30 minutes straight then rested for 5 minutes. We did this a couple times and made a real dent on the mileage for the day. Our plan was to get to Deep Gap Shelter by noon and make mac and cheese. We executed this plan to perfection. Unfortunately the water at Deep Gap was far away (about 0.7 miles) so we dropped our packs, grabbed the water pump, and pumped water. We then decided to eat lunch and make our way to Dick's Creek. We got there at about 3:30 but our other hiker friends were there and told us that there weren't any shuttles coming to pick hikers up today. Usually, shuttles from the Top of Georgia lodge come up to Dick's Creek every couple of hours to pick up hikers and take them to their lodge for food, showers, and somewhere to stay for the night. Our hiker friends said they were just going to walk to the lodge, which was close to a mile away. So, we decided that since we have enough food for the night we will stay and camp at Dick's Creek then try and catch a shuttle tomorrow morning. We found a good spot with water and we camped there. We made the last of our food, set up our enos, and hung up the food. We are now in our enos and planning out what food we should get when we resupply tomorrow.

Sunday, April 17th

We woke up at our camping spot around 7:30 this morning. I made a fire and proceeded to cook oatmeal. I used the fire instead of the burner this time just to try it out and save our propane. After oatmeal we packed up and walked until we got to Unicoi Gap which was about 2 miles. We did not rest until we got to Unicoi which was an impressive feat. We rested at Unicoi and got some granola bars then went up Rocky Mountain. We had lunch at the top of Rocky. The night before we planned to have 2 half lunches. Meaning, we would eat half of our lunch on top of Rocky Mountain, and the other half on top of Tray Mountain. We proceeded to eat our first half lunch on top of Rocky and we met two hikers with trail names of Dirty Bowl and Salami. We interviewed both of them at the top and then they went on their way. We then left and made the trek to Tray Mountain. Rocky and Tray were two really tough mountains as we literally ascended 1000ft in elevation, then descended 1000ft, and then ascended another 1500ft until finally going back down another 1000ft in elevation. Georgia was said to be the toughest parts of the trail due to the rigid, up and down terrain. After Tray we hiked down and we planned on caping at Steeltrap Gap. We finally got to Steeltrap and we saw two dudes who took the camping spot there. I was kind of dehydrated and I was all out of water so we had to hike half a mile down the mountain to re-fill our water. After hiking down, we figured we could just set up our enos down here and sleep at this spot. There were no camping spots down there but we made it work. We scavenged for flat ground since we needed to make dinner so we sort of made our own flat ground. We made dinner and the two dudes came down to get water. We were talking and then they asked us if we were doing a school project out here. Apparently, word got around that we were on the trail doing a project. So, we told them about our project and then we interviewed them. We are now finishing dinner and planning our day tomorrow. We have to get to Dick's Creek, which is 9 miles away, so we need our rest. We have been eating a lot of the food and we think we didn't get enough at Neels so we're going to try and get to Dick's Creek a day early to resupply. We don't really know what to expect out of Dick's Creek and I think it's going to be a lot different than the store at Neels.

Saturday, April 16th

Today we woke up a little later around 9 to a chilly mountain breeze. Because we hiked an extra 3.5 miles yesterday we only had a 9 mile hike today. It was originally planned to where today would have been 12.5 miles. We set out late after not having coffee and started our ascent to a long plateau. Starting at Horsetrough Mountain we hiked about 5 miles o  flat terrain. We decided to finish our somewhat easy day by scaling Blue Mountain and staying a little past Blue Mountain shelter. After a brutal 800 foot ascent we came to find the shelter and surrounding campgrounds were all full, so we ended up setting up camp about a half mile past the shelter around 6:30. By now, we have accepted our roles for the construction of our night shelter. Every evening upon reaching camp we both quickly gather firewood, make our sleeping arrangements (tent or enos), and set up the food. I build a fire and make any necessary changes to near by logs or rocks while James cooks up some food. We noticed that this was becoming a trend as this has happened for about the third night in a row. We went to bed around 8 after some delicious Mountain House chicken & rice.

Friday, April 15th

Today we woke up at our camping spot which was about 100 yards away from the store at Neels Gap. We quickly got ready and drank coffee before heading into the store at Neels Gap. We asked if we could take a shower and it costed us $5 each. We took showers, changed, then went to the store to buy food. We bought about $100 worth of food and then bought a couple of t-shirts. For the first 4 days we had plenty of extra food and so to cut down on weight for the next 6 days we decided to go lighter on the food when we resupplied. We finally set out to finish the day with a simple 5 mile hike to Testnatee Gap since we just resupplied. After reaching our destination around 2:30 we felt like we had more in us, so we cut down on tomorrows 12 mile hike by hiking more. We ended up hiking an extra 3.5 miles to Steep Rock Top. We finally set up camp around 6:30. We set up the tent, made dinner, watched a ridiculous multi-colored sunset over the mountains, then went to bed.