Now we are walking

Bill and Katz finally get to the starting point of the Appellation Trail. There is a cabin there that they stay in the night before they head off. Immediately Katz goes to his room for the rest of the night. Bill is organizing his pack for a final time to check if he has everything there. He then looks at the weather for the next few days. It is calling for heavy snow storms and very cold weather. This is not what they are looking for to start the hike. Bill goes to bed to sleep good one last night.


In the morning, Katz wakes up Bill with a cup of coffee in his hand. Katz is ready to go. Bill likes this and gets ready himself. Bill grabs a cup of coffee and prepares to head off. When they walk out the door, Katz leans over to Bill and says, "maybe we should wait until tomorrow to go." Bill gets very upset and is disappointed. But anyway, they head off. Katz and Bill are making good time for about a mile. Then Katz starts to drift slowly backward from Bill. Bill does not worry about it and keeps going at his own pace. Every now and again, Bill stops and waits for Katz. During the night, they find a spot to camp, and sleep there. In the mornings, they pack up, eat a snickers bar, and they are on their way for the day. They are planning on doing 8.5 miles in the morning and 10 miles in the afternoon. One day, Bill hears Katz chucking a fit behind him and swearing a lot. Katz is getting really pissed at how heavy his pack is. He starts to throw many things down the side of the cliff they are on. Some things were important, like food, and others not so much, like coffee filters. 


Along they way, they meet up with this crazy lady who is hiking by herself. She has ADD and is very rude. She calls the guys fat and really out of shape. She helps herself to the last little debbe cake that Katz has. He doesn't talk to her for a long time after that. She stays with Bill and Katz for a few days, dissing them the whole way. Finally, the guys make a plan to ditch her. They start walking really fast, faster than their new "friend". They get to a road that goes through the trail, and they hitch hike into the closest town. They have a nice meal and head back for the night to start again tomorrow. Bill starts to get remorseful that they ditched their friend. He thinks about her being all alone. But Katz doesn't care. She ate his last little debbie cake. They find out soon that she dropped out because she got bad blisters on her feet from trying to walk 20 miles in one day. (which is hard to do on this trail).


Whenever you go out on a hike, it is a good thing to use the buddy system. It is good that Katz is with Bill on this hike. But the girl they met up with, was by herself. That is not good. If something happened to her, nobody would know. She would be gone forever. She was doing the right thing by trying to walk with people, but Bill and Katz ditched her. And ultimately felt remorseful, which was good.