Days 1 & 2, Katahdin and Panning For Gold

July 14

Day one, 5.2 down, 2180 to go

Paul and Debbie dropped us off after a good nights sleep and a hearty breakfast and we were on our way up to Katahdin, the official start point of the AT. It was a 5.2 mile hike up, 5,268 feet, just a few feet short of a mile. The hike was fun and strenuous. Started out slow and all of a sudden we were climbing boulders, lifting ourselves up each rock. There was a false summit, once we got to the top of the rocks we realized it was still a mile and a half to the top. It was sooo worth it. I remember stopping to look at the view thinking, this is what I quit my job for? All right! It was pretty hot, 95 degrees. We got burnt pretty badly since we were over the tree line for over half the hike. We got back to our campsite around 6:30 and were exhausted from a long days hike. Made dinner, walked around real slowly and limpy, all the while thinking "this is it!" We are on the trail! A wonderful first day.

July 15

Day two, 15.1 down, 2,170.8 to go

I (Ethan) was in the front and took a wrong turn which led to an extra two mile loop around a small lake... I guess that's life. However, before we knew it was a wrong turn, we sat down at a creek and put our feet in and had lunch (Snickers).

(Billy) Also a highlight was getting to Big Niagra Falls on the way. We stopped and waded in the water and panned for gold. After being convinced sparkly gold colored flecks in the water were gold, Ethan made me go get our cooking pan. we spent another 10 minutes trying to get the sand and water out of the pan and looked closely at a few specks, before we realized that it was fools gold. Our hopes of striking it rich diminished, and we continued on the AT.

(Ethan) We met another SoBo today, her name is Karma, she flip flopped (hiked from Springer Mountain to Harpers Ferry and then went to Katahdin to head south, back to Harpers Ferry). She seems pretty cool, we tented in the same site tonight and we will see if tomorrow keeps the three of us together. We ran into a pretty bad batch of mosquitoes; worse than anything I've ever seen. It made me think of what Nick Rowe went through when he was a POW (Five Years to Freedom), as punishment, his captors took his mosquito nets away. Though we didn't have it nearly that bad today, we walked through at least two miles of Mosquitos surrounding us at every moment. We are bitten pretty bad, but have kept a positive spirit!

(Billy) Ethan still has no trail name. He has turned down Not Yet and Wrong Turn. We will find one soon. I think enough people asking if he has a trail name and him responding, "not yet," is causing him to rethink it. He says to ask him again in the morning. We are loving this so far. There have been rough moments in only two days, like crossing a river, missing a step and having a wet boot the rest of the day, muscle soreness, tired feet, hunger, swarms of mosquitos and putting our pack back on after taking a break. But I stop and look at where we are, and the doors God opened to get us here and I am so grateful and willing to take it one step at a time. We are enjoying Psalm 139. Debbie read it to us yesterday morning, before we got going and we read it last night again.

At the official start point, Katahdin

View of Katahdin 

Sitting at Big Niagra Falls

Big Niagra, behind me was where we panned for gold!