April 12, 2016

We woke up late at 10:00 in the tent. It rained hard last night and we woke up a little wet because our rain cover wasn't 100 percent effective. My first night of sleep was less than desirable and it took us a really long time to pack up, eat breakfast and get on our way around 11:45. Todays planned hike was a 8 mile hike from Hawk Mountain to to Blackwell Creek. We set out to climb Hawk Mountain to start the day and after a pretty hard hike to start the morning we snacked and enjoyed the views on top of the mountain. We hiked on past Horse Gap and Sassafras Mountain and finally took another break on top of Justice Mountain after just hiking 5 miles. The second day was an easier hike than the first just because we were smarter in how we took breaks. We decided that a good pace for us was 15 minutes of hard hiking uphill until we took a water break, and about 30 minutes at a time if we were going downhill. We made it to Blackwell Creek in good time and started to set up camp and prepare dinner. After a good meal we decided that it would be a good idea to put up our bear bag because we cooked close to where we had set up our Eno hammocks. A bear bag is a bag that you hang in a tree using a rope and carabiner to move the sent of food away from your campsite so that bears, whom are nocturnal, don't ransack your food in the middle of the night. We tried to go to bed early because of our long 12 mile hike tomorrow but once again I struggled to fall asleep comfortably and didn't get much rest.

Ford, Muir and I at our first white blaze

Ford, Muir and I on top of Springer Mountain, the beginning of the Appalachian Trail