Cupcake Papers

One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century according to my dear friend who is a baker is the cupcake liner. Prior to this, you had to scrub the pans after every bake which was time-consuming and in many cases, ended up with stuck cupcakes and muffins.
Now, you just pop the line in, add the batter and bake. Over and over and over again. At the end of the day, one wash, rinse, sanitize and dry!

What does this have to do with the Appalachian Trail?

Well, our second outing on the trail was uber-successful due to three very modern inventions.

The first were our tricked out hiking boots. The minute we got back to Sandy Springs after our first adventure, I ordered, over Don's objections I want to point out, both of us hiking boots from REI who was having their annual sale that ended that Monday night. These hiking boots were delivered by UPS. Even though they were both the wrong size, Don switched them out at our local REI store and I spent much of the intervening time, wandering around in mine attempting to break them in so that I didn't have blisters. With regular socks, I would have. But that brings me invention number two ---

Hiking socks. I also ordered Don and me the best rated hiking socks. $15 a pair except I did get a discount to $12 due to the sale. Still. I have NEVER paid $12 for any pair of socks and I bought each of us 3 pair. Extravagant to the max. EXCEPT, I swear, my feet never sweated. I got no blisters. I did look extremely stupid and slightly dumpy with my ankle high socks but let me just say -- hiking boots that don't slip or get water on your toes with a tough toe box to avoid the toe stumping issue and great wool blend hiking socks are the greatest combo EVER for hiking.

But the best invention of all was an application that Don downloaded to his IPhone 5. It cost $9 bucks but it was worth every single penny. It shows the trail in countless ways but the most important to Don and me was the elevation feature. It shows you where you are on the trail and at what elevation. Then you know, hey, it is only a few steps to the top or Holy Cow, we have another mile of this uphill slog so lets go easy. We knew exactly how far we were from the put out state and really, the whole trip was so much pleasanter with the knowing. The free version is worth taking a look at but the money one if you going to hike is the way to go. I cannot stress how much we relied on this app all weekend long. It also really helped in Don's prep for this trip. He used it to plan our walk due to my very specific requests -- 4 miles on Saturday (okay so we walked 5.6...) and 10 miles on Sunday with put in places that were accessible. Well, that almost worked. This application is amazing.
Now, there is no cellphone service on much of the trail but I think this thing works off of GPS so it always worked. The knowing. I cannot express how incredible this was to us.
On the trail, there are signs. 5.6 to Dick's Gap, Water/Camping arrows. But darn few of them. And maybe it is still my type A personality that is intervening and part of my journey will be to let go of the 'know'. But for trip 2, this app was an amazing help.

In other news, we hiked from Plum Orchard Gap to Deep Gap on Saturday. It was a little dicey getting in to our put in place and we ended up abandoning the truck and walking the last 1/2 mile in. This was the sole cause of my nervousness the whole trip. I worried and worried about that truck either being pushed off this access 'road', tires slashed, whatever. I am such a worry wart. It is so bad that my children have "it keeps you running" by the Doobie Brothers as my ringtone with the phrase "are you gonna worry for the rest of your life?" playing over and over. The best sight we saw was Sunday afternoon at 4 o'clock a black truck parked on a steep incline with whole tires and motor that cranked on the first go.

But back to the hike.
It took us 3 hours to hike the 5.6 miles to Dick's Gap which is where we left Don's car. I was amazed at how much better, easier and stronger I felt. I could go 1/4 mile on the straight ups before I had to stop and rest rather than the 100 feet that I did the time before. Don also had poles this time (from my REI purchase of course!!) and that made all the difference to him. It was a beautiful afternoon and we were down off the trail at 7:40. We had a great dinner at a steak house in Hiawassee, took a bath and off to bed.

This was a huge root ball of a downed tulip poplar tree next to the trail. Since we had just had a devastating storm in Sandy Springs on Thursday night, I think this may have been a casualty in the same storm.
The next morning, we took Don's car to Deep Gap which is actually in North Carolina. The drive to to get there, even though we were only walking 10 miles on the trail, took us an hour. Mountains are tricky places to travel in. And this access road was lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
As is Deep Gap. Several people were camping there in their cars and it is a beautiful spot for that. We were back on the trail at 10:10 AM and off the trail at Plum Orchard at 3:42 PM, having hiked a little over 10 miles.
The best and scariest thing we saw was a GINORMOUS rattlesnake with his tail on the trail. I very nearly stepped on the stupid thing. He let Don take his picture and away we went. Mr. Rattlesnake never moved.

We also encountered a pair of ultra marathoners who were, and I am not kidding, running the trail. These two women had a camel pack of water and nothing else. They had started the morning at Dick's, run to Addis Point, run back and then ran to Bly Gap and were running back to Dicks. A total of 28 miles. Running. on the trail. There are so seriously scary steps and back turns but these two were doing it. It takes all kinds.
Other than two other overnight hikers that was the extent of our human encounters. We did meet up with tons of insects -- as a side note, it is amazing how many more insects there are out there than what we have in the suburbs?????-- Mr. Rattlesnake and posters about Bears.

And at the end of a great hike, one wash, rinse and sanitize and we are back to our normal, suburban lives.
It was a lovely, lovely, lovely hiking experience.