Date: 2013-03-08
From: Blue Mountain Shelter

To: Tray Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 8.1
Weather: clear sky

(In which I field a trifecta of challenges)This is the easiest night on the Trail yet. I spend the night in my hammock and sleep fairly well. Owls wake me up early in the morning, and I start moving at around 0600. Chickadee wants to accompany me into Helen to get breakfast and look around the town, and Lucas wants to come too. It winds up being all six of us rousing early to get into town. Bouncing Betty is being picked up by his mother and theoretically she can give us a ride into town. We start moving and cross the first of three 4000-foot mountains for the day, 4025-foot Blue Mountain.Thanks to the cold night, the thousand-foot descent from Blue Mountain is fairly easy. We meet up near the road almost an hour before we were supposed to meet up. I suggest some of us can start hitching into town, but Bouncing Betty says we can all fit in his mom's car. Chickadee and Madison Star wind up getting an early ride anyways, as a car discharges two hikers and offers up a ride into Helen. They pile in with a third hiker that I have not met. The rest of us wait for our ride.After a cold, inactive moment of standing around, Bouncing Betty spots his mother's car pulling into the parking area. There is a problem - it is not the car he thought she would be bringing. It is a two-door coupe. The situation is immediately clear, and I take the initiative and move to the roadside to try hitching into Helen. Fortunately I am not there too much longer before a compact SUV pulls off the road. The driver is an older section hiker, Nomad. He has covered the Trail as far north as Virginia and plans to finish the sizable remaining section next year. Nomad drops me off at the edge of Helen when I see Bouncing Betty and company piling out of the coupe. Thus I complete the first challenge of the day - hitchhiking for the first time on my thru-hike.Bouncing Betty and company are just going to the caf© on the edge of town, but I want to find the German place that Chickadee and Madison Star were going to. walk to the center of town, my kilt eliciting a honk from a passing car, and find the German restaurant that they are getting breakfast at. They are joined by Roadrunner, a German thru-hike who is quiet but not unpleasant. I take amusement from finding myself on the Appalachian Trail and visiting a touristy Bavarian-styled town only to have breakfast with a hiker from Bavaria. I order coffee, corned beef hash, and poached eggs - I can easily eat more but didn't want to spend too much.Next up is a stop at Betty's, a local grocery store. I really need nothing but get some extra cheese, pepperoni, and flat breads. Bouncing Betty and company are also here, so the group is reunited. We each get what we want or need, and then Bouncing Betty's mother takes me, Chickadee, and Madison Star back to the Trail. It is a cumbersome ride, with my pack in my lap and almost touching the steering wheel. We are dropped off at the Trail and start walking as the rest or the group is shuttled over. Someone has left trail magic here - cold sodas - but I pass it up since I already have town food and drink in me.The Trail rises immediately and with no hesitation toward the summit of 4017-foot Rocky Mountain. It is not a terrible climb in spite of the thousand-foot rise. We break at the summit to eat lunch and wait for the rest. In that break we are passed by a few aspiring thru-hikers. Dirty Bird is first - a middle-aged woman with a shaved head, and the only other person I have seen who isn't wearing pants. She is followed by a few more backpackers, each of whom stop to chat briefly before continuing north. The only name I pick up is Dan, though I recognize the gal that passes us from Neel Gap. She had zeroed there in the wintry weather a couple days ago.Lucas - who I now know has taken the trail name Johnny Cash - joins us, and soon afterward Crow also arrives. We break a while longer, as we only have about five miles to our likely destination for the day. I start moving first, as I can feel the sun starting to cook me. At the bottom of the mountain is a fire road, and I find Robbie and Kenzie there - both thru-hikers without trail names yet. They notify me of trail magic on the other side of the road, and I investigate. There is a cooler with a few remaining cold sodas, a box full of snacks, and a box full of other supplies. I help myself to a Coke and a candy bar.I wait around for the rest of the group, and start up the mountain before them. We plan to take a break at the cheese factory site noted in the guidebook, but when I get there I find no evidence of a cheese factory. I notify the rest when they reach this spot, and we move on up 4430-foot Tray Mountain. Having run so far ahead all day, I am starting to feel low on energy and move slowly up the mountain. I take place behind Chickadee and Crow and follow them up the mountain. I struggle to keep sweat off my glasses in the midday warmth - it must be at least 60 degrees here and there us little breeze. For the first time I am going without any base layers and taking full advantage of my kilt.Eventually the rocky top of Tray Mountain materializes. This marks the completion of the day's second challenge - summiting a trio of 4000-foot mountains. We are close to the shelter, so we loiter here for a while. I play with the focus adjustment on my camera - it likes to focus behind my target with my ultrawide lens. Eventually we move down to the shelter, which at 4199 feet is easily the highest shelter I have stayed at. I make myself at home, setting up my hammock well behind the shelter to avoid snorers tonight.Somehow, it has come that this group of five must stick together. Somehow I have also become the group's leader. Everyone assumes they will also go to the dance I am planning to attend Sunday night! I inform my contact at the dance - I thought I might be bringing one person, but five is a huge logistical hurdle. Here is my final challenge of the day - attempting to either get five people to a dance they may not be interested in, or convincing them not to go. Eventually the situation fixes itself, as I want to push a few miles past Deep Gap Shelter and stay at the hostel tomorrow night. Nobody else wants to invest that effort and then take a zero day, preferring to take a short day to Deep Gap Shelter before neroing into Hiawassee and staying there on Sunday.All challenges for today resolved, I fill up on a large dinner and get to sleep. I plan to head out alone tomorrow and take advantage of the early hours I have been waking up to get in my miles quickly.Peace,