Death Hike: Day 1

And so begins the narrative of the death hike.

Sarah and I started off our day by having lunch with our friend Megan. (Our last meal in her words, before heading off to die.) After lunch we stopped by the store to pick up some last minute things (like 8 gallons of water) and off we went to the middle of nowhere in WV. That's us on our adventures before everyone else joined us!

After a couple hours we were in Seneca Rocks, WV. I have never ventured to this area, and I must say it is beautiful. I look forward to going back and getting to explore some of the other areas nearby! Back to the story though...

Sarah and I somehow volunteered ourselves to make a water drop along our 24 mile trail route at an area where the trail intersects a public road. Now the only issue being that we didn't know where we were going, and there weren't really clear directions on how to get there. (I do believe part of the directions were something like, "after you are on 220 for a bit there is a road, that isn't marked really, that goes through two mountains, that goes by a magic bus, and up to where the trail is". Right.

So after getting lost once (only about 8 miles out of our way) we found our way to the trail.We then found a place to hide the water, which isn't as easy as it sounds when the landscape is kinda open... and then headed back to meet the others and leave our cars at both ends of the trail and begin our hike.

We met up with our other 4 friends (Brittani, Josh, Curtis, and Ricky), and made our way to the south end of the trail where we would begin our journey. As we arrived, another car pulled up beside us, and to our surprise it was our friend Billy and his dad, who were there to hang and help us set our camp that evening. At this point I think it was about 9:30 or so, and we began our uphill climb in the dark. After just a few minutes we found a nice area to set camp, but about half the group decided that it would be best to continue further uphill to get it out of the way.

Well, we were already exhausted from a day of travel, and let me tell you, a consistent uphill hike in the dark after driving all day is not too good. Also... its best to have dinner on a night like that. Sarah and I got so busy that we forgot entirely to eat, which did not help us at all. After about 2 miles uphill we finally found a suitable place to set camp. It was sometime around 12:15 by then.

It was a LONG day and a rough way to start the hike....