Date: 2017-04-08
From: Dick's Creek Gap

To: Standing Indian Shelter
Miles today: 16.7
Weather: clear sky

We woke up this morning and the bunkroom was a flurry of activity as everyone un-exploded their packs. We grabbed the free cold breakfast at the hostel, weighed our packs (mine, disappointingly, had grown 2lbs), and then Liz, Lookout, and I (and others) loaded into the 8am shuttle back to the trailhead (a whole 0.5 miles, but it's uphill...). We pulled in to the gap and found a number of tents still setup, some of their owners just emerging for the morning. We quickly unloaded, bid our farewell to Odometer, the shuttle driver, and hit the trail. Despite the chilly morning (in the 30s), the uphill had us stripping off layers in no time, and soon we were down to our shorts and short sleeves, the jackets having been stored in the pack for the day.Lookout and I stopped in at a shelter for a water refill and snack break and it was amusing to compare us, in minimal clothing, to the recent roused hikers, bundled in puffies and jackets.We continued ascending and passed through a region which had been burned in last year's wildfires. The fire had entirely cleared the forest floor of detrius and all bushes, plants, and shrubberies, leaving only bare dirt. The bark on trunks of all the trees was deeply charred and even the taller saplings which appear to have survived weren't budding like the rest of the forest. It must've been quite a sight to see with the entire top of the mountain burning.Coming down into another small gap from the fire we came across TRAIL MAGIC in the form of a couple sodas left as the trailhead. We came across a couple hikers already enjoying the treat, and even I (who doesn't drink soda) was tempted to partake. (Side note: a coke is 140 calories (the same as a granola bar) of mostly sugar... perfect before an uphill). One of the hikers there was Collin Baggett, who is documenting his hike on Facebook and YouTube (YT channel name is Collin Baggett), so he snapped a picture of us all (I held a soda for the picture to not be awkward).Georgia sure does it's best to make sure you don't leave... The entire morning was an uphill battle and we gained over 2000 feet of elevation (not counting the PUDS, pointless ups and downs) before reaching our first big milestone of the trip, the GA/NC state line, marking the completion on 1 of the 14 states the Appalachian Trail passes through.This landmark is marked in 2 ways, by a small wooden sign affixed to a tree along the trail halfway up a never ending hill, and by a metal cylinder that used to hold a trail log now mostly consumed by the tree that it was nailed to. Had we not known to expect it and had 2 other hikers (Q2 and OnTrack) not taken lunch there, it wouldn't have been hard to miss. We snapped some pictures with the sign and decided to also eat some of our lunch there and watched as several other hikers passed through and snapped their pictures. By this time the temperature has climbed to ~60 and the sun was shining, so it was pleasant to sit for a while.Collin, the same guy from the trail magic earlier caught us once again here, and asked us to take part in his video to mark the occasion. He hired a camera guy (2 rocks) to hold his phone, and began recording by giving his viewers some corrections and notes about the previous videos (while we laughed in the background). He then mini-interviewed us about our thoughts on reaching the state line, which pretty much ranged from "it feels like I just walked 78 miles", to "one down, 13 to go!".We continued up the hill (by which I mean mountain), and came across 2 guys who informed us that there was trail magic 7 miles ahead at a gap. While we had pretty much already decided to do a couple extra miles today (we would've finished our originally planned 11mi by 1pm, and had decided that doing a 20 tomorrow for no other reason that to have done a 20 was stupid when we could easily break the 11 and 21 into a 16 and 16), the possibility of trail magic sealed the deal. We kicked on the afterburners to finish the hill and promptly found the next hill, the steepest we'd yet faced, and immediately had to slow down again. We had gotten pretty good at GA hills, but apparently still have some work to do on NC hills.We worked our way over several small (could hundred foot) but steep hills, on top of which, despite the 79deg heat, in the rhotodendron thickets, we found several inches of snow. Our climb into NC had brought us to elevations which saw significant accumulation, and there was still several inches on the ground in places as we passed through. There was very little wind, so entering the thickets felt like entering a refrigerator, the lack of sun and snow causing the temperature to drop ~30deg, which was a much appreciated way to cool off after the accents.We met up with Liz at the shelter (she had continued on at the border rather than eating lunch there), and soon reached a shelter and had second lunch with her. Lookout and I finished a little earlier than her, and eager to cover the 4 remaining miles to the gap, headed out, promising to save her some food. Those miles passed quickly and we got some great views (through the trees) on snow capped mountains to the north, which were hoping we either don't have to cross or are no longer snow capped when we get there.We finally reached the gap and found a HUGE tent setup and ~20 trucks parked all around. Signs proclaimed that we were entering the 15th annual Red Truck/Green Truck feed-a-hiker weekend, a celebration we were happy to take part in. Liz rejoined us, and we all got sausage, hotdogs, chili, pulled pork, and peach cobbler and enjoyed the feast in front of the fire and talked with our hosts for 1.5 hours. Eventually we decided that the last uphill 1 mile to camp wasn't going to climb itself, and hit the trail again, quickly reaching camp.The downside was that non of us were hungry upon reaching camp (truly a feat for a hiker), so we didn't end up eating any of our food, save for a few snacks. I started writing this journal as the sun left our camp, climbing the mountain behind our camp that we'll ascend tomorrow morning, and then staining the sky to the west with deep oranges and reds and then slowly faded to black. The moon is just about full and shining brightly even through the tent ceiling, which is unfortunately obscuring most of the stars. While writing from my tent I got to listen to MagicTouch and SmoothTalker, who decided to use the shelter tonight, realize there are mice in it (there are mice in basically every shelter) and then setup their tent IN the shelter (with some cursing), which was somewhat amusing.This will probably become more and more common, but I'm going to make a back introduction. Liz was one of the people who zeroed in the Troy Mt shelter the day with the thunder storms. She played a couple games of cards with us and chatted throughout the afternoon. She's section hiking to Damascus, and was hiking with her boyfriend up until Dick's Creek Gap, where he had to get off (he only had time for a week of hiking). She's also into swing and salsa dancing (turns out, Lookout also salsa's), which we found out when we were hanging out again at the Top of Georgia hostel. We hiked together today, are planning to tomorrow, and it looks like we might share a room in Franklin, so at least for now (and maybe for a while) she's joined us our group.Tomorrow we've got 16 miles planned, and will hopefully hit a couple good views (they're marked on the map, so they should be better than average) including a fire tower. We'll be heading into Franklin, NC on Monday where I'll be mailing myself enough supplies to get through the Smoky Mountains ahead to Fontana, NC (which has terrible resupply options) which I'll pick up in about a week. We might zero in Franklin... Franklin seems to be the least decent town for a zero for the next 150 miles, Liz was already planning to take a zero (she hasn't yet), Lookout is still trying to get his blister to heal. I don't really feel like I need one, but I'm ahead of the average schedule for a 5mo thru hike and am liking hiking with Lookout and Liz, so we'll see what I end up doing.Thru hiker logic of the day: I packed waaay too much food... What? There's trail magic in 7 miles, let's go get free food!!AppalachianTrailThruHiker.com blog, magic touch