Appalachian Trail
Backpacking Trip
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Appalachian Trail Hike
May 13-15, 2005
We left Mt. Carmel Church at about 5:00 p.m. on
Friday, May 13 and headed to our starting point. We stopped near
Helen, GA for dinner and got back on the road to Unicoi Gap.
Everyone got their packs on and Mr. Trent lead all of
the boys .5 mile up Rocky Mountain to our campsite. After tents were set
up, we sat around for a little while and went to bed.
Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast then moved on. We hiked the
rest of the way up Rocky Mountain, then Tray Mountain. We thought we heard
Mr. Ken say "there was a bear in the tree at one of the campsites on
the
way." But what he actually said was, "there was a good tree for
a bear bag in a campsite on the way." One group came up on a Timber
Rattler, he must have just eaten something, he was huge. Another group saw
some turkeys and a deer. The whole Troop was stretched out over about a mile.
Everyone ate lunch at the Tray Mountain Shelter. We were all trying out our
different backpacking lunches. We hiked a total of 10.5 miles on Saturday
and ended up
at a campsite called Addis Gap.
After getting camp set up almost everyone went
down to the creek, about .5 mile from the campsite, to get water.
When we got there, another Troop was camping by the creek. The
Scoutmaster came over and offered us their
leftover food. It was a big pot of chicken and dumplings. You know we took
them up on their offer. After we got all the water we needed we went back
to camp and cooked dinner and ate some more. Most of us had MRE's, some had
Mountain House dinners and others had Ramen Noodles. We sat around the fire
for a while and at 9:30 the adults made us all go to bed.
Sunday morning Mr. Mike woke everyone up and we
ate breakfast and packed up. Josh had a really good Vespers Service
and we hit the trail at about 8:45-9:00 AM. Right when we started
to hike up the first mountain heading to
Kelly Knob, it started raining. It rained the whole time, but we made really
good time. 5.4 miles in about 3.5 hours. After the last few people came off
the trail, we loaded up and went a restaurant called West Family Restaurant
for lunch then all met back at the church.
This was a very strenuous hike in some places,
especially Rocky Mountain and Tray Mountain, but we all made
it and Mr. Mike said he was really proud of all of us.
Hunter
