Date: 2013-04-04
From: Blue Mountain Shelter

To: Deep Gap Shelter
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: snow

So today was the day that there was supposed to be rain. A couple of miles out of Blue Mountain shelter the trail dips down into Unicoi Gap where there is a road and shuttles are available to bring hikers into Hiawassee, GA if they call ahead of time. Most of the hikers who stayed at Blue Mountain the night before ended up taking a Nero day (almost zero miles hiking day) and bailed out at Unicoi Gap. Clutch who I met on my shuttle ride from Atlanta to Springer and I planned on hiking through the weather. What's a little rain after all? Can't bail out every time it's not sunny... He left before me and when I ran into him later that day at Tray Gap trying to lash his poncho to his pack the first words he said were "I thought I was going to die back there." Those were my thoughts exactly. When they say "rain" in Georgia, always factor in the elevation you are going to be at and the fact that weather can change quickly in the mountains. There was rain, high winds and chunks of ice all over the trail and every branch on every tree had a coating of ice on it by mid-day. At one point I actually said out loud that I didn't want to die today and tried as best I could to not get blown off the trail. In one spot I sat down and slid down two large rocks because there was no safe place to step without slipping. After running into Clutch at Tray Gap we decided to head for Tray Mountain shelter and hunker down briefly to get out of the weather. When I got there there were two guys there who were headed south and one who was camped out there for the night. I made a hot meal with my stove for lunch, filled my water at the water source (spring down a steep hill) and used the privy. I had to break ice off of my pack cover to get to the contents of my pack and had to crack the lid off of the privy because it was frozen shut. There was a small fire smoldering in the fire pit so I ate my lunch by it and tried to warm up. After we had both eaten and gotten water I asked Clutch if he would mind if we hiked together the rest of the way to Deep Gap shelter and he agreed that it would be the safest option. We had both originally planned on spending the night on Tray Mountain but between the weather and elevation figured that it would be safer to be at a lower elevation for the night. We finally arrived at Deep Gap that evening and I debated about staying in the shelter (there were already about six guys there) or in my tent. They had already seen one mouse in the shelter and I know it's silly but the idea of a mouse crawling across my face at night just isn't my thing. The mice will crawl in your hair looking for bedding material, chew through food bags, etc. I can't say I blame them. They are just opportunists. So I pitched my tent behind the shelter and spent a fitful night of little to no sleep in the only dry clothes I had (a t shirt and tights/spandex) and the next morning had to put all of my cold wet clothes back on and pack up my wet tent before hiking the 3.9 miles down to Dick's Creek Gap. That night was the lowest point of my hike so far. I can't describe how miserable it feels to be cold and wet and exhausted with no way of doing anything about it until morning. On a happier note, I made it to the gap by 9:30 AM in time for Gary who runs the Blueberry Patch Hostel to shuttle me to the hostel in Hiawassee, (saving me an additional 3.6 miles of walking).