alajones 2020 AT Hike

alajones4 and I hiked about 102 miles of the AT starting on July 5th and ending in July 12th.
I just felt like sharing a little of our hike with y’all.

We’ve been section hiking the AT since 2017. We’ve gone 345 miles so far starting at Springer Mtn.

Preparation

We like to cook hot breakfast and dinner. Instant oatmeal and grits for breakfast, dehydrated meals or pasta sides/rice sides for dinner. We do freezer pouch cooking. And tuna/Spam packets for lunch. We had to pack all 8 days worth of food.

We do tents, but I may switch to hammocks, cuz I don’t sleep for crap in tents. Even with the biggest Big Agnes sleeping pad they’ve got.

Feet were an issue. We got new hiking boots because our trail runners wore out last year. But we didn’t take into account getting them a half size bigger to ease up the pain on the downhills.

Anyway, first day, it was only a half day since we had to drive from Huntsville, AL to Erwin, TN. We started at Standing Bear hostel just north of the Smokeys. We hiked up to the top of the first mountain and ran into some rednecks on ATVs. They gave me a Miller Lite. I wish I’d gotten a pic with them, because they were pretty cool dudes. First night it was just us and the coyotes and owls kept me up all night.

Second day, ran into a couple of hikers and started to hike with them. We hung out at Max Patch and ate lunch.




Sunset on Walnut Mountain.


Third day, we went into Hot Springs, NC and stayed at a hostel. Our tramily stayed there and took a zero day.

Just the boy and I for the rest of the trip except for a young man we picked up for a couple of days. The trail was pretty deserted. Not a lot of hikers.





Big Bald Mountain


Nolichucky River


A few blisters, but not a bad hike. The lack of other hikers was noticeable. It’s always better with a group of folks.

If you’d like to see the GDCKs we ran into, look here.