Guest Post: Walking in the clouds

Hey! Today I have the pleasure of sharing with you a Guest Post by Anna, aka Mud Butt. For those of you that don't know who she is, she is the head Dame, the founding Dame of the outdoor women's group called Trail Dames. I've had the great fortune of meeting and hiking with her and many Trail Dames over the last few years. I can honestly say, I have never met a Dame I didn't like! Anna created an amazing group for introducing women to the outdoors. For more on the Trail Dames, check out the link under my Fav websites on the right. Now enjoy a page out of her Appalachian Trail Thru hike down below! Til next time... GET OUT DOORS!!!

Walking in the clouds (Excerpt from Mud Butt's AT Journal)

Well, today I learned what the inside of a cloud smells like. We walked up in the clouds most of the day and it was our best hiking day yet. We did 9.6 miles today and would have gone further except that the weather turned very nasty, very quickly. When the grey fog threatened to overtake us, we pulled into a great campsite out of the wind and hunkered down. The temperature was dropping very quickly, so I decided that the best place to be was in my sleeping bag! It was a great hiking day, though! It was alot of ridge walking, which was fairly flat, with just a few big climbs. We stopped for lunch at Low Gap Shelter and there was a group of fraternity guys there out doing trail maintenance with a member of the Georgia A.T. club. They were so funny, these self assured young men. You should have seen the look on their faces when we told them we were walking to Maine! It was priceless! We did take the time to thank them for the work they were doing on the trail. I for one, am so grateful!

After our lunch break, we enjoyed the rest of the days hike immensely. Bumpkin and I both agreed that it was our best hiking day so far. When the weather turned nasty, she found us a wonderful camp site out of the wind and off we went to find water. The neat thing about our water source was that it was actually head of the Chattahoochee River. You would think that it would be grand and big, right? Well, it was actually a small trickle coming out of the ground. But it does go on to become the Chattahoochee. I think that is kind of cool!

The not-so-cool thing was that it was a half mild hike down a very steep trail. And when I stay steep.... I mean steep! But like Bumpkin said... that is what hiking the AT is all about!

After we had retired to our tents for the evening, we heard two voices shouting out 'Hello!' It was two fellow thru hikers that were looking for a campsite. The combination of the deteriorating weather and signs of bear activity combined to make them pretty nervous and they were very glad to see others in the area. As they set up their stuff, we all introduce ourselves. It turns out that they are the Good Grass Consort, a bluegrass due that we had heard about on the trial. Needless to say, we had a ton to talk about!

The cold soon drove us all back to our sleeping bags and we settled in for a snug night on the trail. The temperature might be dropping quickly and my hands might be freezing, but in case I haven't mentioned it... I am having a really great time!

Love, Anna aka Mud Butt