After an extremely arduous hike today, the hardest I've ever done, I made it to the Gooch Mountain shelter around 6-6:30. My dinner of Ramen and Mac & Cheese was a bit of experimentation. My cook pot is not large enough to do the entire bag of M&C all at once, and even with splitting it in half, both the ramen and M&C boiled over. But, I think I have it figured out how to do it tomorrow with less water and less mess.
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Lunch at Hawk Mountain shelter.
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First night of camping went well, when I wasn't cutting off circulation in my arm from sleeping on my side against a hard surface. Breakfast was two delicious packs of instant oatmeal.
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At about 9 am this morning, I started hiking the AT Approach Trail with Michael. The falls were a nice view, even if the long staircase climb was not much fun. Michael helped out by carrying my poles up the stairs to the top of the falls, since the stairs were metal grates that were not very trekking-pole-friendly.
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I made it through the 8.8 mile approach trail (more like, death by stairs trail), and am now standing at the summit of Springer Mountain! Let the hike begin!
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