Date: 2009-04-13
From: Rock Gap

To: Franklin, NC
Miles today: 0.0

The last few days have been something else... I got it in my head to get into Hiawassee by Friday, so I was gonna push two big days out of Neels Gap. Why? It's a constant competition between my mind and my body to see if my body can meet the arbitrary and semmingly unreasonable expectations my head generates. Maybe it's pure masochism... I dunno. Anyways, I left the hostel at Neels Gap at 6:30am so I got to see the nearly full moon set and the sun rise. It was beautiful. It ended up being a clear, hot day, and I made it just over 18 miles to Blue Mountain Shelter. It was a bit buggy so I pitched my tent which is kinda abnormal for me--much more of a shelter rat. It worked out well though because I was able to get up and out even earlier Friday morning, which ended up being a very good thing. I was on the trail by 5:45, enjoying a bagel and nutella sandwich in the dark as I walked. As I hauled myself out of Unicoi Gap up to the top of the mountain there, just as the sun should have been clearing the hills, the thunder rolled in bringing a torrential rain storm. I saw the sun for about 5 minutes on Friday, the rest of the day was relentless pouring rain. Sounds bad but once you give yourslef up to the idea that you are going to be soaking wet and there is nothign to do about it, it's fun. Plus I knew that I'd be rolling into town. The only real thought preying on my mind was would there be room at the hostel? There's a hostel outside Hiawassee called the Blueberry Patch which is supposed to be where it's at and I very much wanted to stay there. However, with the weather and two shelters full of hikers between me and town, I was thinking my odds of gettign a spot there were slim to none. After 19 miles I finally hit the road. My last two miles are often my "Boo-hoo, I'll never get there miles" so I can't even tell you how jazzed I was when I finally heard cars. As the fates would have it, I got the last spot at the Blueberry Patch. It's a very quaint, backcountry kind of hostel run by Gary and Linny Poteat, two of the nicest people you can ever meet. Gary did all of our laundry personally, he loaned us a car so we could go into town and eat and resupply, and the next mornign they made us and huge delicious pancake breakfast with homemade blueberry syrup. I met a bunch of great people--Skeeter, Sis, Thunderpants, and Gaucha-- at the hostel which is nice because I hadn't yet come across a crew of people I was interested in rolling with. Saturday was a cool hazy day which was ncie for hiking. I hit North Carolina about half way through the day. We were planning doing a shorter day, but again, the fates intervened in a wonderful unexpected way. We decided to push a bit further, and a mile before the shelter we were heading for we ran into a huge trail magic setup. I ate 3 veggie dogs, and a ton of cake and chips. The fellas running it were spending the night to wake up and do their annual Easter morning omelette breakfast for the hikers. We pitched our tents, and first thing the next morning I gorged myself on a huge veggie omelette, tea, juice, more baked goods, and fruit. They even packed me a lunch for the road As if this wasn't enough, they were planning on setting up their goodies 21 miles further down trail that afternoon, so they took Skeeter's and my gear and we slackpacked for the day. Unreal... The weather was perfectly clear, not too hot or cold, and I got some great views of North Carolina. I made the trek to reclaim my gear just as they were calling it a day so I go to thank them one last time.Skeeter and I rolled into Franklin, NC a few hours ago and are gonna spend the day/night here cleaning up and doing some errands. All in all, I've been pushing big miles, but there have been so many luxuries it's hardly been a challenge. At this rate I suspect that all my clothes at home are going to be snug when I return...again.