Hello Wilderness Walkers,

Looks like a common set of dates are June 8 - June 13 with June 8 & 13 as travel days. That gives us four days on the trail Thursday the 9th of June through Sunday the 12 of June 2005.

Our starting point for this hike will be Neels Gap. This is the location we finished the hike at last year. We will start out of Neels Gap on Thursday and hike to Whitley Gap shelter which is about 6.2 miles. Friday we will hike to Low Gap shelter which is about 5 miles. Saturday we will hike to Blue Mountain shelter which is a distance of about 7 miles. Sunday we will hike out to the parking area just to the east of Georgia State Road 17/75 which is about 3 miles. This trek gives us total distance of about 21.5 miles. This hike can realy be done in two or three days instead of four. For now I will keep this hike at four days unless I get enough interest to do it in a shorter period of time. Let me know your thoughts on this topic. If we do decide to shorten the number of days they will be a sub-set of the days mentioned above.

Accommodations can be found at both Neels Gap http://www.bloodmountain.com/ and south of Unicoi Gap in Helena or Unicoi State Park which has a lodge, cabins and several day hikes http://ngeorgia.com/parks/unicoi.html . I will be researching this a little more in the next few months and will give more detailed information on off trail accommodations in an email to come.

A day hike group: Hans is organizing a day hike schedule for hikers who wish to travel up and stay at one of the many lodges, cabins or campgrounds and do day hikes in the local area. Hans will give more information on this at a later date. If you are interested in this let Hans know via email.

I will send an email out soon for a website for this years hike. For now you can look at last years site at http://www.hanskemmler.com/erick/ If Hans has the room we will just update the links and reorganize the page with a couple of maps for this years hike.

Now is the time to start thinking about this and getting your gear ready. First purchase if you don't already have them is high-top hiking boots, not the low-quarter hiking shoes, but BOOTS. Protect the ankles! As soon as you get them start wearing them and break them in...

Check out the dates and let me know if your in and what category you most likely fall under.

So far I have:

Back Country

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Eric Kemmler

Bart Springer

David Richeson

Bo Partin

AJ Kemmler

Day Hiking

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Hans Kemmler

Barb Kemmler