Date: 2015-04-03
From: Dicks Creek Gap

To: White Oak Stamp
Miles today: 12.6

An interesting day, for sure. It began with a great breakfast at the Top of GA hostel and then we were loaded onto the shuttle and transported back up to Dicks Creek Gap. I thought that the day would be easier since we had a nice ZERO the day before, but was I wrong. In fact it may have been my hardest day so far. From the gap we were working our way upward to the NC line. It was quite a day of slow uphill progress. By day's end my toes were killing me because of having to dig in and push off with each step. When I made the Stateline crossing I was absolutely exhausted. Don't let the smile fool you. I figured it was Georgia' way of kicking us one last time before we left it behind. And how did the Tar Heel State greet us? -- with a kick in the teeth! That sharp uphill lug out of ably Gap is cruel and don't believe anyone who says otherwise. And just when you think you've made it you discover it's only a false summit and there is more climb to face. But we made it. But wait -- the day isn't over yet. We reach Muskrat Creek Shelter, ate some energy food, filtered some water and hiked on another .8 mile to a nice campsite for the night. We started a fire to keep those pesky biting bugs at bay and cooked our dinner. That's where things got interesting. Our companion, Gorp began to say he wasn't feeling well and couldn't eat his dinner. Not much later he came back from the woods to announce he had vomited everything in his stomach and felt better. By 8:00 we all turned in. By 10:00 it begs to rain. Then lawyer we heard Gorp moaning. He made several runs into the woods but continued to worsen. The other three of us were awakened later on to find a very ill Gorp in his tent suffering from vomiting, extreme and continuous diarrhea, very near hypothermia and dehydrated. It was about 3:00 this morning and we couldn't do much for him. The Rescue Unit out of Franklin was called and they set out to evacuate him from the trail but assured us it would be quite some time before they could reach us in such a remote area. All we could do was talk with Gorp and try to encourage him. Ice-fire gave him some Gatoraid to sip and we took turns standing out in the cold and mist and the dark of night to look for the rescue folk lest they go by our campsite in the dark. It was a long night. At times we feared we had lost Gorp. Finally around 6:15 or so we heard the coming -- a four-wheeler or two up a somewhat discarded old logging road near our camp. I can't say enough for the courage and dedication of these men to put themselves at such risk on such a horrible night to rescue a downed hiker. It was incredible. Quickly they administered first aid to Gorp and loaded him and all his gear onto their vehicles. It had taken they hours to reach us because they had had to saw through many downed logs or saplings to reach us. They assured us that an ambulance was waiting back down on Hwy 64 but it would take an hour to get down. After they were gone, sometime around 7:00, Ice-fire, Special Ed and I crawled into our tents to get warm and catch an hour of sleep. I'll complete this saga on the following entry.