And so it begins

Hey out there! You all feel really far away from these woods we have been climbing through. These woods are pretty spectacular and ever changing. We have now made it to day 4 and our first resupply stop! 

The first day was wonderful with my parents, Marly's parents and our two friends Lindsey and Bex. They hiked with us to the top of Mt Springer and we took many pictures which I can't wait to see. After getting to the top of Springer we realized we had to go back down to the parking lot to continue our hike. We were actually sent off from there not the top of Springer. 

The first day of hiking was a lot of fun. We spent a lot of it moving through tunnels of Rhodadendrums (my closest spelling)! Up some small hills, around a waterfall (that we never actually saw), over another hill and down a long stretch when we made it to our first campsite at Hawk's mt. 

It was fun setting up our tents for the first time and going to get water at the near by stream. There were a lot of people there that night who all started the same time we did. We sat by the fire with them until about 8 pm when most people including us were hitting the tents for a god night sleep. Unfortunately it wasn't the best night sleep as we found out that we were on an incline and both of us were slipping and sliding down to the bottom of the tent and I kept sliding off my sleeping pad. 

The morning was quick with breakfast and packing up and setting off at the same time as this girl we met named Lee. Since then she has become our new hiking buddy! The second day consisted of big uphills and downhills (which hurt my knees), singing as I walked in beautiful weather, lunch by a stream, and getting to our second shelter with plenty of daylight left. A early dinner and a fire built by Marly and I kept us occupied for the remainder of the night and an 8:15 bedtime. 

It ended up raining that night, but thankfully by the time we were getting up it had stopped. Things were only slightly wet and put away in our packs. We set off with Lee again and spent the day hiking through the fog. With only one big hills and some pretty slow down slopes it turned out to be a easy day of 8.5 miles. Best surprise ever though was getting to Woody's gap by a road and having our first Trail Magic!!!!! This guy named Fresh Ground had a table full of food and drinks!!! He had coffee, hot chocolate, cool-aid, fresh fruit, donuts, and best of all BANANA PANCAKES!!!! It was incredible. Once well fed we had to keep moving because it was getting cold. The next 3 miles seemed like nothing and our campsite seemed to come really quickly. The temperature has dropped a bit and once we stopped moving my cold caught up to me a bit. I set up my tent really quick put on all my layers and crawled into my sleeping bag. 

After a while I got warm enough to venture over to a fire someone had built. I was able to stay mostly warm. Marly thought it stated to sprinkle after getting dark so we decided it was bedtime. As we were walking I nothing flakes of snow reflecting off of my head lamp. Of first night in snow!