Date: 2010-02-12
From: EconoLodge Motel (Helen, GA)

To: Mull's Motel (Hiawasee, GA)
Miles today: 15.0

At 6:15 the next morning, I was packing my gear up. It was all so warm and dry. I wrote until 7 o¢clock then went to breakfast. Ron, the on-duty manager, was fiddling around with setting up breakfast. He rambled on about how dismal Richmond was for various reasons, including one story about two hookers begging him for crack money. Another story involved drug-running and leaving town after a 6¢5¢ friend fooled around with some other guy¢s girlfriend. ¢I gotta ask you something¢, he said. ¢Are you carrying a gun?¢After breakfast, I dressed my blisters. I bought moleskin at Randy¢s pharmacy and the lady let me sit inside to apply it. Randy gave me free blister tape: Trail Magic! ¢Stay as long as you want, I¢d let you lay out and take a nap if we still had those mattresses!¢I walked out to the road and stuck out my thumb. Believe it or not, Ron pulled over. He rambled about me burning ukp all his gas money, running a homeless shelter, how ¢he don¢t pay me shit¢ at his job and the yars he spent with black ops in Vietnam. ¢I help people like you out because of what I done to all them¢, he said looking skyward. ¢You wouldn¢t believe the sniper rifles they got these days,¢ he said next. Ron was a good man, a wreck but worth every penny. I¢m glad I met him. ¢I can¢t afford to burn all this gas,¢ he said. ¢But I need to get up into these mountains. It¢s beautiful¢. I got out and slammed the door at the trailhead. He rolled down his window and yelled for me. ¢Hey, hey¢¦I¢ve gotta ask you a question.¢ ¢Do you ever see things up there that you¢d never see down here?¢ I said ¢Yes, you do.¢That day on the trail was great. I passed one hiker after another, meeting and greeting and exchanging trail info. I first passed Ryan, another thru-hiker. He¢d been laid off, but luckily gotten into law school, and, with his wife¢s permission, took off on the A.T. during the layover. He had a nice North Carolina draw. ¢I¢m one of those slow, deliberate people¢, he said as I passed. ¢Yeah,¢ I laughed. ¢You¢ll probably pass me napping in the next shelter¢. Next, I passed three sturdy men moving in the opposite direction. They were older, yet were ¢tougher than your average weekenders¢ as they assured, and seemed it. They were impressed by my ultralight pack. On my way up Tray Mountain, I passed an older fellow coming down. Dave Herring was in his 60¢s and still climbing Georgia¢s mountains, meeting up with thru-hikers and helping them along the way. A full-time Trail Angel, you might say. Today, he escorted two thru-hikers up and over Tray Mountain (remember, the trail was all but wiped out by the storm). For two separate nights, Dave had brought the hikers homecooked dinner, a warm bed, and a place to watch the Super Bowl. For three days, he had brought in two thru-hikers for hot meals, beds, and a Super Bowl party while icy conditions on Tray Mountain improved. Today, he escorted them up and over the mountain. He used to be a big runner, he said, but had lost cartilage in his knee. Now, he was down to just day-hiking for he and his wife. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for this man and his wife, for people who give themselves so fully to the strangers passing through. I¢m talking about the A.T.¢s host of Angels, and they¢re watching over our road north.After a long nap at the top of Tray, I passed two thru-hikers, Fauma and Second Stage, on the way down the mountain (when I say ¢down the mountain¢, I¢m referring t the many ups and downs between a summit and a gap. Rarely is there black-and-white ascent and descent on the AT). All day, I¢d been tracking their prints through the snow and around the debris. Catching up to them was the climax of the day. ¢You hear about these hikers ahead of you and you read all their entries in the shelter journals. You start to paint a mental picture of them,¢ I told Fauma when I caught him. ¢It¢s kinda like online dating.¢ He laughed, ¢Wow, guy¢.My eyes were set on Dicks Creek Gap, still 5.5 miles away by dusk. I flicked on my headlamp, chugged some orange juice and kept trucking. My legs were tired and my feet sore from walking in my booties for 8 miles already. I made it by 7:30 and hitched a ride into Hiawasee by 8pm. I got a motel room for $50 despite efforts at bargaining. I walked across the street to Hardee¢s for dinner. I wrote, took a hot shower, and fell asleep by 11:00 with the lights on.