Date: 2022-05-06
From: Sassafras Gap

To: Mt Katahdin
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Friday May 6th was aneventful day. Thursday night it rained and thundered. Unfortunatelyour tent sight wasn't close to level and as my air mattress sliddownhill I was left with a shortage of leg space, and the downhillend of my tent had some water, and the end of my sleeping bag wasalso wet. Our goal for the day was Cable Gap Shelter, 15.4 miles downthe trail. Though we had experienced a certain amount of rain duringthe previous days today was much different. It began raining earlyand pretty darned steady. We had a few short breaks in the rainduring the morning. But later in the afternoon it poured. We decidedto take a break at the Brown Fork Gap Shelter and to possibly goahead and spend the night there. But when we arrived the shelter waspretty full of mostly younger people, not exactly in the demographicidentity of Brian and myself. After we got there we had a pretty gooddownpour, along with 3 more hikers who came in. One was a gentlemenwho was a southbounder about our age. The discussion of the youngerset wasn't exactly of the sort of language that we normally employ,and sleeping in the shelter itself would have been veryuncomfortable. When a break in the rain came, the Southboundgentleman and Brian and I headed out.We made 2.0 miles before the clouds letloose. And I do mean let loose. The temperature was a balmy 50degrees, the trail was a muddy mess with water 3-5 inches deep inplaces and the wind blowing a small gale. It was 3 pm when we leftthe shelter. At about 6 pm we made it to the blacktop road about 1mile from our original destination. There was a hiker hostel about 2miles down the road from us, but the cell coverage was nonexistentand we never heard from them. Brian went searching for a level placeto pitch our tents and I stayed by the road hoping to hitch a ride. AUPS van drove south of us, and about 10 minutes later he headednorth, stopped and said he was sorry but UPS rules prevented him fromgiving us a ride. He did go to the hostel for us but on his returnback told us that the hostel was full up. He suggested that we mightwalk 2 miles south to the stop sign and turn left and see if a hikermotel there had space which didn't seem real appealing but I wasgetting concerned about hypothermia. We both had been prayingearnestly for a ride to somewhere, anywhere dry and warm and the Lordanswered our prayers more abundantly than we could ever haveexpected.A gentlemen heading north saw usstanding around (I was really right on the edge of the road) and hestopped, backed up, and asked if we needed a ride somewhere. To quotehim as near as I can, he said ¢You guys don't look very happy rightnow. Can I help?¢ Did he ever help. He drove us to the motel wherethe owner said I'm sorry but my family is coming from out of town andthey will use all of the rooms. Chip was our angel. He is anelectrical engineer who works in Atlanta (about 3 days a week) butlives in this very remote area of the North Carolina AT. He said wellthe first thing we better do is get you to my house and feed you guysdinner. Believe it or not his Atlanta church has a serious ministryin Guatemala and they buy something like 40,000 pounds of greencoffee beans that they roast and resell, much of it to churches. Hiswife Jeanne does taxes during the tax season and today was her lastday of doing taxes. Chip walked in his house and said he was bringingin 2 dinner guests, cold and wet. She was also a jewel and said youguys are welcome to taker showers to warm up before dinner. WE DID!Her dinner was superb, and they called a neighbor down the road whohappened to have an AirBnb, which by God's providence was availablefor tonight, which is where I am typing this. Chip and Jeanne's sonis in the Navy stationed at the Paris consulate. Jeanne and the ownerof the tax firm where she works are flying there in 1 or 2 days tospend time with him before he is redeployed to Japan. There are justvery, very fine people.Tomorrow morning Chip will pick us upand deliver us back to the trail where we will have a very short 6mile hike to get to the Fontana Dam Hilton as we begin our trekthrough the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.