Stormbringer's First Steps on the AT

“You should have asked him where "Coach Mountain" is, lol...”

“I should e mail him back and say, "put me in Coach!" He won't know what the hell I am talking about...”

“I just checked out the reports on trailjournals.com so I could see his mileage stats, etc. Good job Tree! I look forward to reading more.”

“awesome!”

“GOOCH!”

“ITS STORMIE!!!!

HI YA!!

you feeling good?”

“Where ya at, SB?”

“Yeah, I know now. Making a SHORT list of corrections.”

“gooch mt., not coach mt : P

im zeroing at fontana dam right now, gonna head out in the morning, planning on taking 5 and a half days thru the smokies.

im not even CLOSE to dropping out right now. when you think of it as a long series of 3 to 7 day hikes, it is much easier, cuz you have to re-supply every few days. right now, the only thing i can think of to stop me would be running out of money or serious injury (with me, either is possible!)

ive met a really wonderful woman on the trail. she was freaked out by me at first, but we are really warming up to each other. her name is katie and goes by the trailname "cricket". ive given her one of my medicine bags so that shell always remember me fondly even if we go our separate ways. right now she is a day ahead of me cuz she is not zeroing here, but i will catch her when she zeroes in gatlinburg. i think shes the most beautiful girl on the trail and i hope i can make something happen, and if not, ive really enjoyed knowing her.

yea, im smitten. you may all now snicker : P

C!B!”

“Good deal, Scott.


Ok.ok, I got the point about Gooch!!!!!”

“all together now...





AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW”

“<snicker>”

“HAHA treebee, sorry to make it so difficult with my horrible handwriting.”

“I am soo happy for you,. are you going to introduce her to your trail talk family? just keep bacpac awayfrom her and you will do fine!

still working on getting you some yummy food!”

“how about some pea soup?



*giggle*”

“CrashBang's in love! woooohhooooh! Good luck with the backpacking chicka. A chick for company on a 6 month long hike would be much better than a dude or solitude. But what are you doing zeroing letting her get ahead and gettin' to know other dudes...go catch her man! Don't let her get away!

Good luck on the trip. How can I get a hold of you in July? I might come hike a few days with ya. Lemme know--I'm signed up on the help sb hike the at page.”

“Glad to hear your doing well Scott and good luck with Cricket!”

“~snicker!~

Good luck on that front!”

“Now that's an awesome trip report! I can't wait to read my friend Jodi's account of the trail, she's about a week behind StormBringer.”

“Whatta bum! Goes on the trail to hike and find himself and is already planning his wedding ; ) JK, good luck.”

“Great to hear everything is going well Stormbringer/Falls-to-Ground/Crash-Bang!

This is the tree he fell from on Springer to get his trail name “Falls to Ground”.

The ground below where he landed is actually rock, but he bounced right back up! I tried to get him to fall again so I could get a pic of that, but he wouldn't fall for it . . . lol! So the pic is actually his second, more sucessful attempt at tree climbing.

Treebeard - thanks for taking the time to do this . . . we all appreciate it!”

“If you get a chance to read this before I talk to you, sorry I missed your call : ( I wasn't in the room when you rang the celly.”

“Good picture of the Stormbringer! The name still cracks me up. Anyway, it is my pleasure to be able to help him out with this. I think it's great that we can all monitor his progress this way. He called last night from a hotel somewhere in North Carolina, readying to enter the Smokey Mountains. It's the first day off he's taken and deservedly so. I bet the three showers he took felt GREAT! The really encouraging part of the call was how upbeat he sounded. Seriously, he came off PUMPED! He said the only low he's experienced so far was the stop at Neel's Gap that was in his trip report. The girl he met went on and is taking her day off in the next few days and he expects to catch up with her following that. Go git 'er, Scooty!!! Good luck, man!!”

“LOL!!!!!”

“Unintentional, but I like it!!!”

“yet another name, wonder what the girlie calls him?

lol

keep it up Scot, we're all really enjoying our vicarious hike with you.

Still plannin on Trail Days man. See you there.”

“There has to be a book at the end of all of this.”

“Maybe movie rights too!


...depending on how it goes with the chiquita!”

“I will produce and direct it!”

“Let's just hope his sweety isn't writing "some dork called Falls From Trees keeps following me around, got to hike faster!" in her journal. ;-)”

“LMAO at SS.

Sounds like he's doing fine so far. Upbeat is the way to be.”

“I looked to see if she had a journal on TrailJournals. Unfortunately, no, she doesn't, lol...”

“Maybe she is just a figment of his imagination?”

“Scott SHOULD be past the Smokies right now.
I hope so. It was 12 degrees on Mt LeConte last night.”

“thats chilly.

I spent a freezing night on Mt. Sterling this time of year a while back. It can happen fast up there.”

“This is such a fun time of year for hiking.”

“Daaaaang!

12 big ones! Hope we don't wind up with a Scott-sicle!”

“12 degrees on leconte is warm...”

“I have no doubt. I was just thinking that, after some of the warmer weather he's experienced recently, 12 degrees could feel a little colder than under other circumstances...”

“I hope we get an update soon!”

“i'm sure he's fine. we slept in really cold weather like that in MD in january on the beach.”

“I just got an email from Scott's parents tonight that said he was in Davenport Gap today. Said the weather through the Smokies was fair to crappy . . . and cold at night.

At 12* I would think so!”

“where was his next expected pit stop?”

“he made it through the Smokies at a fairly good pace then. Guess Hot Springs is where we'll here from him next.”

“I'm not sure if he went into town from Davenport Gap or was moving on from there . . . they didn't say.”

“Thanks Gforce. I hope he's still lovin' it!”

“not much of a town to be had there.”

“could be he just stopped to make a phone call to his parents.”

“Glad to hear his journey is moving along. :-)”

“I've been dehydrating food and getting a package together for him over the last few days. I looked on the journal pages and he is expected to hit Elk Park on 4/21. I don't think that, even if I had the package together today, that I would trust less than a week for him to get it. So, he is due at Damascus on 4/27. I expect that I should be receiving his next week's (or so) worth of entries any day now. As it is, I am going to send him about 2 to 3 days worth of food, as that is all he wants at a time. I will update it as soon as it rolls in...”