Getting Ready to Start the AT Again

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Hello everyone.
We are getting ready to hit the trail again. Our plan is to drive down to North Carolina where we ended last year, park the car and shuttle down to Springer Mountain, GA. That is the Southern end of the AT, from there we will walk north the 287 miles back to the car. This should take roughly 30 days. We plan to do journal updates same as last year. The photos will however not be posted until after we return home. I think this will be the fastest way and save Matt his valuable personal time as he is working full time, doing his MBA studies and his wife is expecting a baby in August.
We would still love to have you send us comments via the comment tab on the web page. You don’t know how much encouragement we get from reading them back in camp after returning to the trail from town. We will also be packing a cell phone and might even call some of you when we have coverage.
We have lightened our packs up from last year, CC’s is down to 20-25lbs and mine is around the 40lb mark. We still both have some problems with joints, but will have them braced up best we can. We are also not going to cover huge miles every day trying to average 10 miles or less. There will be some days where that rule will be broken, but we will try to keep those to a minimum and plan them when our packs are low on chow. We have changed our food some and are using commercial freeze dried vegies and meat in our meals. We will also carry less water during the day (a 6lb loss for OD) and fill up our 1 liter containers more often. For purification the MSR pump system (1lb) will be replaced with chemical tablets (2oz). CC trimmed the lining out of her rain pants cutting their weight in half. No extra pants will be carried, when we get to town it will be wear the rain gear while our cloths get washed. These are a few of the things we have done to make the walk easier on our bodies.
I will be driving the 18 wheeler for the next two weeks. I plan on being home by the 20th and we hope to start walking by the 26th at the latest. I will send out another update once we have a hard date for the start. Thanks again for all the interest on our walk.

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