Suches General Store

The intersection that determines Suches


Hey guys, we just pulled in to the Suches General store, well, walked in really. We've done about 30 miles so far and we ran out of food last night so we had to hike another extra couple of miles into this town called Suches (pronounced such – as) Georgia. It’s actually more an intersection than a town; but, it has its own post office so I guess it’s legit.

Hopefully we can hitch a ride back to the trail head so we don't have to walk the 2 miles back. I washed up a little in the bathroom. I rinsed out my underwear in the sink and hung it out on the back of my pack to dry. I’m already chafing and there won’t be any breaks to heal.

Please forgive any typos; there's this rubber, flexible keyboard and some of the keys don’t work all that well. I'm just going to type now and edit it when I can. It has been a grueling hike so far. I am having trouble editing the website so to see our GPS logs you have to go to http://wbafinc.motionbased.com (I think that will work) there is a link on the website. You can click on the Google Earth file and get a better idea

We got to the road after hiking a few miles this morning and decided to hitch/walk down the road for two miles to get to Suches. Our first Hitchhiking attempt was a miserable failure. No one picked us up and we had to walk the entire way to the Suches General Store (like a 7/11 but with more stuff) where they had some barbecue sandwiches cooking up in a pot on the counter. They were delicious!

After that, we walked next door to the Post Office to send home a bunch of gear, 11.3 pounds of gear, to be exact. We've met up with some very interesting people so far. My body hurts! Everything hurts; my earlobes are frustrated and my nose is tired. I have been fully exhausted. I "bonked" on a hill after Horse's Gap yesterday and I nearly had to be carried to water. “Bonking” is when you don’t eat enough while you are hiking so that your blood sugar drops way low and you literally feel like you are going to die.

It looks like this schedule is going to be rough to maintain and I'm wondering if we'll even make it. We're running thin on resources already; but, I think things will work out unless we run into any serious emergencies. I never noticed how expensive it is to eat on the road! I'm going to sign off and we’re going to try to get back up the street a ways. I'm sending another video tape back today. We're all excited ‘cause we got some more spaghetti! Woooo Hooo!

David, AKA "Two Tone"

Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/brotherproof
David's Website:
http://www.davidpatrone.com

Dances with Wolfie

Important directions at Gooch Gap Shelter

Stover Creek to Gooch Gap Shelter 12 Miles

We made it through the first night even though my rain fly kept flapping with a particular similarity to the sound of a bear traipsing through the leaves on his way to enjoy a sumptuous Backpacker Hammock Crepe. I don't know if I actually slept much since I'm not wearing a timepiece of any sort and the wind was howling around and swingin' me all over the place. Actually the swinging was very nice if I wasn't all worried about Bears coming and sniffing me for a 2 AM snack; and let's just say I was quite aromatic after a full day of climbing mountains.

We saddled up and headed on out, hoping to crank out twenty miles on our first full day of backpacking. Needless to say we didn't make it. We managed to do about 16 miles according to my GPS ( http://wbafinc.motionbased.com ) and about 12 miles according to the map. There's something fishy going on around here! When we got to Justus creek we cooked a little and we were DONE. Note to self: Stop Eating Lunch! We barely made it back up the mountain to Gooch Gap Shelter where we collapsed. Earlier that day we had passed a female hiker with her dog "Wolfie." She told us her trail name and we didn't like it much because it was self-given and pretty negative. We decided that the next time we saw her we'd call her "Dances." A little while later, Dances and Wolfie showed up and we knighted her with her new name, she loved it and shortly thereafter another girl walked up who had recently graduated from Medical School so, you guessed it, "Doc" set up her homemade hammock in the shelter and unloaded her homemade backpack and got into her homemade sleeping back (we would later discover she had a lot of ingenuity and tenacity when it came to creating gear) We'll have to hire her on at BrotherPROOF when we get it rolling. During the hiking we came up with each other's Trail names:

Mine is "Two-Tone" because I'm singing all the time and I wear Two-Tones
Doug is "Cyclone" because it always rains wherever he goes and when we got in to Amicalola there was a tornado watch
Mike is "Rolex" because he's always trying to keep us on schedule (mostly unsuccessfully)

We ate and had a little show tonight and slept the hiking pains away. My pack is heavy... I hope we can speed it up tomorrow, oh yeah and we ran out of food tonight :(

David
AKA Two Tone
Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/brotherproof
David's Website:
http://www.davidpatrone.com

Begin the Appalachian Trail

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Starting Out Appalachian Trail


We're off! We're sitting in the Amicalola Lodge and the fog is thick. It rained all last night and the lightning was close. I was awakened by an incredible thunderclap just outside our window at 4 or 5 am. We are hiking down to the bottom of the falls this morning and then back up to start the climb to the official beginning of the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain NC. Doug is having tooth issues but we'll try to find a dentist for him somewhere on the trail. I uploaded our first gps tracks from Philly to Atlanta including the flight (I left the GPS on while we were flying on accident) anyway, we ate breakfast at the lodge and we're off to begin the Adventure of a Lifetime; Three Brothers and the Appalachian Trail!

David
Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/brotherproof
David's Website:
http://www.davidpatrone.com