Date: 2007-04-02
To: Hiawassee, GA
Miles today: 66.6
Weather: light rain

Hey all! Im down here in Hiawassee, GA, about 8 miles from the NC border. Things are going excellent. I guess we'll start from the top.We flew down to Atlanta, GA with my parents and just chilled around the airport section of the city that night. Me and Eric felt really out of place but it was all good. Haha, anyways...we got down there, the flight was good, the hotel was great and next thing we knew it was morning and we were headed to the trail head in a rental SUV driven by my parents. We got pretty damn lost on bumpy forrest roads, but everything went well. We eventually found Springer Mountain and hiked up to the top with my parents, got the pictures at the well known summit and headed to our first stop. The first night was at a campsite outside of Hawk Mountain Shelter, woke up to a beautiful day, tons of people. The next day we were headed to Gooch Gap Shelter but at an awesome stream cross/campsite we were told there were about 50 hikers bunched up around that area so we decided to cut the day short and relax by the river. There we met Ron and Kelly, Crazy Horse, Paloma, Copperhead, and Rob. All great people. Day three showed us some heat just as the other days did. We were averaging about 75-90 the past three days, which as you can imagine was a HUGE change from the winter in Clinton, MA. Eric and I decided to make decent mileage this day and hiked about 9.5 miles, sat down and had dinner with a cool guy named Day Walker. Hes the type of guy you want on your side, but real nice anyway. We had a great dinner and rest and as the sun was setting, we took off again and did some night hiking. We pulled into Slaughter Creek Capsite just before 9 PM (real welcoming campsite name) and set up the tent. Finished up just under 14 miles. We caught up with a few people we met the second day which was nice. Day four proved to be a rough one. The weather went downhill real fast. A little bit of fog, a ton of wind, and dropping temperatures told us to try out one of the shelters for the night. It was an interesting stay. We were bunked up with Day Walker and some old guys, Porter and Peter who were all in bed at 7:30 which was dull. It was quite the loud night with old-man-snore and tossing and turning galore. The next few days were good but uneventful. We stayed at Neels Gap for a night and resupplied. That night, an airplane probably coming from one of the bases in the area flew just barely over the trees and made the tent swoop down with the wind it pushed down. Scared the crap out of us but it was a good laugh at the same time. A couple days later we hitched into Helen, GA with Peter and spent a night at the Helendorf. My God we pulled into Helen and the whole town is modeled after a Bovarian city. Talk about a strange place. The night life was pretty good as it was a tourist town, fun to walk around, kept spirits up pretty high, but Ill say it again, strange. The next night brought in those storms that were reeking havoc on the other side of the country and between the weather and my slipping on some mud and banging up my bad knee pretty well we decided to pull into Hiawassee two days after Helen. It wasnt something we really wanted to do since going into town means spending money at a hostel and for dinner, but it was the right choice I think. We got to the Hiawassee Inn at night, and woke up and decided to pull a zero day and spend another night. One reason was to rest up my knee, the other reason is there were some cool people to meet up with there. So I guess you could say were a day or two behind, but Im not too worried about it, my leg could use the rest anyway. Well be off tomorrow and in Franklin, NC in 4-5 days. Thats right, finally out of Georgia tomorrow. The lanscape is getting boring. I'll catch up with you then.Take care, Bryan