Hello friends and family! We are so excited to launch this blog as a way for you all to keep up with us during our Appalachian Trail adventure. Our first post will serve as an introduction to our first section of trail, how to navigate our blog, and any other information you all may want to know. Enjoy!
Navigating Our Blog
We’ve done our best to create an easily navigable blog site for you all to use. That being said… there’s a reason we are hiking the AT and not coding. If all goes according to plan, you should be getting an email every time we post, assuming you submitted your email address when you clicked on the blog link to subscribe. These emails may to go your spam or junk folders, so remember to check those! In case you didn’t subscribe, which we understand, you can always search saucyhikes.com on your browser of choice. Our blog should pop up, and you can click through our different sections, however the most interesting posts will probably be our updates. On that note, we are going to try to post one a week to start. Maybe once every two weeks, depending how things are going. We have our comment section open, so don’t hesitate to leave any questions you have for us! If the colors aren’t showing up correctly, try turning off dark mode on your phone or accessing our blog through your laptop.
Where Are We??
We want to see you all!! If you live on or around the trail, we’d love to meet up with you during our hike. If we happen to be passing through your state and you know someone that might want to take in some stinky thru-hikers for the night, we’d take that too! Unfortunately since this is a public blog, we won’t be updating our exact locations, but will maintain general location updates with our weekly blog posts. If you are curious about our specific location or want to meet up, text us! We want to hear from you and see your faces on this adventure!
☕️ Sarah: 571-230-0991
🧞♀️ Lucy: 703-901-3213
Section One of the Trail- Georgia!
The southern most terminus of the Appalachian Trail starts from the top of Springer Mountain in GA. We will set off from Amicalola State Park, and hike up to the official starting point which is an unassuming plaque at the summit of Springer. The entire section of Georgia spans approximately 78 miles, which we plan on doing it in 7-8 days, depending on our pace. The highest mountain in GA reaches 4,459 ft with the iconic name of Blood Mountain, and the entire state spans about 16,000 ft in elevation change, exciting start! We’re looking forward to hiking through Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest (mostly because it has an awesome name) but also because of its fantastic vistas and sweeping forests. Yay for Georgia!
How Have We Prepared?
If you know us, you know we’ve been talking about this hike for many years now. Yet somehow, it still felt like we procrastinated the preparation (unsurprising).
However, the past few months we’ve been doing extensive research including following blogs from past thru hikers, listening to podcasts, and finding websites dedicated to Appalachian Trail data and surveys in relation to gear, weather, and trail conditions. The past few weeks we’ve made a few two many trips to REI (our poor wallets) and spent time collecting and organizing our gear. There are SO many resources out there with conflicting pieces of advice to follow, so we’ve done the past we can to collect the gear that works the best for us. The big question has been… do we prioritize ultralight gear with less comfort for sleeping, or heavier gear that allows us to enjoy our down time more?
Well we’ve had to make quite a few decisions. For example-
- I’m carrying a 65L pack to accommodate my extra gluten free food (although I’ll probably downsize once we shed winter gear because my pack is huge).
- Sarah is bringing a 55L pack that is 2lbs lighter than mine!
- We are both carrying tents for safety reasons, and so we don’t go crazy spending every single second together!
- I’m taking thermal leggings while Sarah is taking a sleeping bag liner for night time warmth.
- Sarah had to get a new last minute pack because hers was the wrong size!
- We will both only be bringing three pairs of socks… yes we will smelly.
- I couldn’t part with flavor while on trail, so I am carrying GF soy sauce, hot sauce, bone broth, and beef flavoring 🙂
You will also notice our scale in the above photo… every ounce counts! We’ve been meticulous with weighing every piece of gear to help us make these decisions. Unfortunately, I did have to part with my camp fairy lights… and Sarah said goodbye to her camera.
Thank you for all the support and love, we both feel extremely grateful to have such wonderful family and friends that cheer us on in all our craziness. You’ll all be on our minds and in our hearts as we take on this journey-
Lucy + Sarah 💗🧚🌳🍄🐞
See y’all on trail! Hopefully we’ll still look this awesome.
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