First day.

The first day was hard- harder than I expected. The initial hike through Harper's Ferry was gorgeous. The town has a ton of history and the AT runs right through the middle of it. Then it was a few miles of nice flat trail next to the Potomac. Jeff and his ride met me at the end of the easy part and we hiked in to the Ed Garvey shelter, about 4 miles. About 20 minutes in to that seftion, it started to rain. Pretty hard. The rest of the hike was slow and muddy. Eventually we got to the shelter and settled in for the evening. There were a ton of people coming in, but Jeff and I managed to get there early enough to grab 2 spots. 

We had the fun experience trying to hang our bear bags. Seems simple enough right? Throw a rock with a rope and then haul it up and tie it off. Nope. It's a pain in the ass. We'll get better at it. 

Then last night was largely sleepless. As exhausted as I was it was nearly impossible to sleep. Lots of tossing and turning. Today we're going to keep it short as we break ourselves in. I'm sore as hell but it feels good.