Date: 2016-04-19
From: tray mountain shelter

To: Dicks creek gap
Miles today: 11.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 8- April 19, 2016We woke up at tray mountain at about 6:45 and got out by 7:45. Our quickest pack up and go yet. Our knees and the bottom of our feet felt sore so we needed to take it easy. We started out slow as we wound our way down the mountain. Because of the wear on our knees, we decided we would hitch into the town of Hiawassee for a resupply and possibly a zero day tomorrow. It was an 11 mile journey to were we could get picked up at a road. The day wasn't too difficult, there was one tough climb and one never ending decent. After we had been walking down for about 45 minutes, I told Mike it felt like the mountain just goes on forever. Not long after, we saw a woman going up the trail. She looked so exhausted as she wearily said to us that it just keeps going and she wasn't sure the top would ever come. After passing her we realized that the mountain did just continue to slope down. After about another 30 minutes or so, we got to a water spring so we sat down to fill up our water bladders. Comet showed up and sat down with us. Then two more people came down the mountain. We met Josh and Ali, a very young couple in their first year of marriage. They were very nice and we all chatted for a bit. Oh, and I found a salamander in the creek by the water source. It was neat. Mike called a place called Budget Inn to see if we could get a motel in town and it so happens that they also had one last free shuttle that could pick us up at 3. We were only a mile form the road and it was about 1:45. For the rest of that mile to the road, we continued downward. When we came to the road, there were two women set up with a table of snacks. Trail magic. We were excited to get over there. One of the ladies husband had through hiked the AT before he passed and as a ministry, her church from South Carolina do trail magic each year. It was cool hearing her stories and talking with the other hikers. Because we were waiting for a shuttle, we stayed longer than the trail magic ladies were going to be there for. They gave us tons of food to take with us as they packed up to go. Once they were gone, a girl name Chardonnay came across our path. She had just missed the trail magic by about 15 minutes so we gave her some of what we got. While chatting, we found out she had hiked the PCT last year and is going for the triple crown. A former through hiker drove up and chatted with us and Sipher showed up a swell. The shuttle arrived to pick us up and we loaded in. There were four other hikers who we had seen at Low gap getting dropped off at a different point. We was a fun drive up to Top of Georgia for one of the guys to get a mail drop. From the van we saw that Alex 2.0 was up there. We continues on to the budget inn and got checked in. Once there, we laid on the floor for a good while just being happy to have a rest. Then we showered up and took inventory of our food. We went to Daniels steakhouse for a fried chicken buffet that was only 8$/person, recommended by one of the hikers on the shuttle. It was pretty good, very filling, and very hospitable to hikers. After, we stopped by a grocery store and saw two other through hikers, Michael and Zach. They walked back with us to the budget inn to get rooms. When we got back, we saw Gandalf the Green and Brooklyn! They took a zero for her birthday so we will most likely be hiking with then again. We were happy to see them again! Once we got back in, we did our laundry the cheap way. Filled up the bathtub a bit, sprinkled detergent and Mike churned the slaty dirty pile of clothes with his feet. We rinsed it a few times until it didn't run so brown, then rung them out to dry. We stayed up late watching a basic cable game show called Separation Anxiety, then went to bed.