Date: 2016-06-06
From: Big Cedar Mtn.

To: Springer Mtn. -- Southern Terminus
Miles today: 22.1
Weather: overcast clouds

Last day, at least for this part. I expect to make it to Springer Mtn. tonight and go down the Approach Trail tomorrow..Started at 5:45. After a couple of views of the impending sunrise, it got cloudy and rained a little. No views for several hours; then the sun came out & everything was very hot and humid.After speaking with a hiker at Gooch Mtn. Shelter who claimed he was Southbound & finishing today but wouldn't give his name, I was overtaken by Chips, a 19-year-old who left Katahdin on the 6th of July and is finishing today also. He's been just behind me for some time. He passed in the dark last night, but was still in his hammock when I got to Woody Gap this morning.For a while this morning, I thought I had running out of poison ivy country, but it came back again.I met a NOBO through hiker from Michigan just starting out, plus 6 or 8 section-hikers this morning. A SOBO I met said he'd counted 99 hikers on the Trail yesterday which is a lot more than I saw, but I was only out in early morning and from 2:30 on in the afternoon.I met a dozen or more section-hikers & 12-14 in a Boy Scout Troop. Some are just doing a short section but others are talking about longer pieces.A couple with a dog was very hard to talk to because it was barking the whole time. For 50 yards after passing them, I was smelling a strange odor. I don't know whether they been spraying themselves or the dog with some kind of insect spray or whether they just thought the great outdoors needed an air freshener. Smelled as if they had just been spraying randomly all over.Sassafras Mtn. has a reputation among NOBOs for difficulty, and on the map it looked quite steep on both sides. I even had some hikers today tell me how difficult it was. It turned out to have gradual slopes on both sides. The longer the slope means it's not very steep, & if it's not very steep, it's frequently not very rocky. Both were true here.After meeting about a dozen more section hikers I got to Hawk Mtn. Shelter & fixed my second lunch. I felt really good, despite the fact that I had gone too far without getting water, hoping to arrive at the shelter sooner. There I met Quest and John (73) and, shortly after leaving, 3 older women, 3 older men, 4 younger men, all seeming to be headed for the same place. After 6 more hikers headed the same way, I met Dancing Creek and Little Stud, from Wisconsin, who are intending to do substantial parts of the trail. One more section hiker plus 2 day hikers, then a father with two 11- or 12-year-old sons, then a father with a 7- or 8-year-old daughter. Then I met 5 more headed for Hawk Mountain, then 3 additional, then a woman by herself, finally, a guy who thought he'd head for Hawk Mtn to avoid the crowding at the other shelters. Wrong!After so many people telling me how difficult the next hill was and it's turning out not to be that way, it was nice to hear a guy say, "After this next rough spot, the trail's in good shape, and it's smooth sailing after that." I want to write to Georgia ATC about lack of blazing on the old road around Three Forks, compared to the Benton MacKaye trail, which winds thru the same area & is well-marked. I arrived at Three Forks at 5:15 ¢ 4-1/4 miles to Springer! Fairly pleasant walk along several streams, mostly on an old road without too much grade, through some of the last Rhododendrum tunnels, under a canopy of pine trees. (I really haven't seen much of that lately). At the end of a 22-mile day, the last few miles really dragged. It's not steep, & it's not even a steady uphill because Springer isn't a very high Mtn. It's so different from going up Mt Katahdin. You don't see the Mtn. or what looks like a summit till suddenly the Trail takes a turn to the left & there's a low rock with a plaque right ahead.I signed in on the register, took a few pictures, including a not-too-bad-for-me selfie (no one around to take my picture). I couldn't even get a good sunset picture, and that's the only direction there's any visibility, because storm clouds were gathering and blocking the sun. I went back .2 mile to the Springer Mtn. Shelter, one of the worst designs I've seen lately: it's supposed to have a capacity of 12, but the 3 guys who were there had spread out so that it was difficult to get even one more person in. I got my stuff set up and cooked a little supper just before the rain started in earnest. They had been trying to get a fire started in front of the shelter with very little luck until just before the rain started; so they couldn't sit very close to the fire, and I had to eat my supper under the shelter roof, but there wasn't much place to sit. I didn't go up to the loft, with its poorly-designed vertical Ladder, but I concluded that putting the ladder on the other side would have provided more usable sleeping space on the ground floor. There were 6-8 feet of stone patio under roof in front (which is certainly better than a dirt floor) -- I don't know if they expected people to sleep on that. I had a hard enough time sleeping on the wood floor with my air mattress leaking. I've taken to rolling up my Poncho and putting it underneath to provide a little extra padding and that helps some, except it's hard to stay right on top of it. WELL, I'M HERE!