Date: 2015-04-08
From: ÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂItÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs All In The DetailsÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ

To: ÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂItÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs All In The DetailsÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ
Miles today: 15.9

Sunday March 29th: The plan after Neel¢s Gap was to hike to Hiawassee and reevaluate my progress. We left Blairsville for Neel¢s Gap via shuttle around 8am after a last hot meal at the Hole in the Wall. Sam, the shuttle driver, took us and another hiker and he got to talking. The other hiker was in his 60s and started about when we did. He was feeling his age on every mountain, too. Sam could talk. He¢s been shuttling hikers since the early 2000s after working on rigs and in restaurants his whole life. In Neel¢s Gap we went straight to the outfitters and picked up our bounce box. Erin bought a watch cap and a trail guide as the old trail guide never did dry out. We opened the bounce box, took out a few things and proceeded to dump everything into a box to mail home. We bought a five day supply of meals and headed back to the AT. On the way we saw Sam take the soggy trail guide out of the trash and thumb through it looking like he was going to hike the AT at any time but he was a fairly large guy so I sincerely doubt that was really his plan. The goal for the day was an aggressive 12.9 miles to Poplar Stamp. My pace was still in train-up mode but I did better with the ups and downs of the trail. We stopped to take in the view and came upon a father-son-son trio. The father had a Grizzly Adams beard, a veteran himself, who was an SF (Special Forces) officer and who finished his career in civil affairs. As we continued to Poplar Stamp the sun waned and the trail began to moderate in steepness. We sat on a ledge and surmised that this part of the trail had been a road at one point and had been allowed to overgrow until it became a worn rut, but it was a relaxing uphill. At Poplar Stamp we met Paul, a chap from Liverpool, England. As Erin set about making a fire she asked Paul how he learned about the AT. He said he learned about it from Bill Bryson¢s book, ¢A Walk in the Woods¢. He is actually more famous in England than in the US because of another book he wrote that was set in England. Paul is a mental health nurse in the UK. He requested the time off and had to farm out his caseload to co-workers. Erin made a comment about feeling really safe with two nurses and Paul said, ¢I can¢t really help you unless you go mad.¢ Paul and I conversed for a while about the differences between nursing in the US vs the UK. Monday March 30th Day 7: At 4am a violent thunderstorm came up. You could see the lightening through the tent and the wind howled like a freight train at full speed. At any point I figured our tents would just fly away with us in them. It was really scary. My wife always counts between flashes of lightening and the thunder, so to distract myself, I did it until there were no spaces ¢ flash/boom. I covered up my head and went back to sleep as it wasn¢t any safer out of the tent. By 7:30 when we awoke again the rain had stopped and the fog moved in. We cleaned up and started walking when the rain started up again. We had a goal of 14 miles to end at Tray Mountain Shelter. The terrain included three mountains starting with Blue Mountain then down into a gap, then Rocky Mountain and down into a gap, then Tray Mountain. We learned later it was quite a feat but it probably was a good thing we didn¢t know that before we started the day. The path was extremely narrow and lined with rocks. So, we had to skip one to another at times. We called the day the double checkmark. There is an old cheese factory site on the trail but we were disappointed that there were no ruins, nothing. From Forest Road to the top of Tray Mountain is only 0.8 miles. I am here to tell you that is the longest 0.8 miles I have ever walked. We thought that trail would never end. Then it was a half mile across the crest to a spot near the shelter where we set up our tents four minutes before sundown. We learned from others the next day that the double checkmark is truly an accomplishment.   We have met some of the most interesting people on this trail. At one point a lady whose trail name is Backward came toward us. She said she was aptly named because she could say any word backwards without thinking it out. It rained all night.Tuesday March 31st Day 8: Sleeping the night at 4000 feet is really, really cold. We awoke at 7:30 and broke camp in record time. This was the first morning it wasn¢t raining or covered in clouds. We left at 8am with Hiawassee, Georgia as the goal. The sun came up early and five minutes into the walk and we were burning up in our clothing. Two hikers passed me, one from Massachusetts and one from Minnesota. Both had read the Trail Journal and stopped to say , ¢Hi¢. We got to the foot of Kelly Knob, a 1000 foot climb and lo and behold there on a table were peanut butter cups, pop, cupcakes, cookies, brownies, a Coleman stove where hot dogs were being prepared and a sign that said, ¢Trail Magic¢. The table was manned by an older couple. She dreamed of thru hiking and he admired the dream. We stopped, chatted, ate, took pictures and gratefully thanked them. Then we went on to conquer Kelly¢s Knob. I was exhausted from the day before and was moving very slowly. Erin moved on ahead and ran into a group we had met at Tray Mountain Gap from Georgia, North Carolina and Minnesota. Roadrunner was waiting for friends. While Erin waited for me she saw two dogs wearing backpacks. A couple of times we have crossed paths with Dudley, a really small cocker spaniel and his owner, Shane. Dudley was comic relief when he tried to jump a log taller than himself. We took the shuttle for $15 for both of us and checked into the Budget Inn in Hiawassee. We got a lot of busy work done, ate at a Mexican restaurant, went to the supermarket, did laundry, packed and repacked and were asleep by midnight. April 1 Day 9: At McDonalds for breakfast we found out about trail hunger and ate like horses. On the shuttle back to the trail we saw people we had met on the first night on the approach trail. They were amazed with our progress. Our goal was Muskrat Creek. We were happy to see Georgia behind us and at the campsite we met Sugar Daddy, Seth and two Germans. Seth moved on with friends that he was meeting on the trail. His friends were going to walk with him for a week.   There were three older men who were tracking about 9 miles a day and were just happy to be alive. April 2 Day 10: We awoke to thick fog and it misted all day. We did the three miles that we meant to do the day before and then some. We ran into Seth and one of the two guys who just signed on for one week was calling it quits during the first day, left the trail, called a cab and went home. The rest of our day went well. We conquered the second highest mountain on the AT and rumor has it North Carolina is less sharply up and down ¢ more spread out. At Carter Gap we saw many of the people we met in days before. I feel like I am improving in stamina and in energy. We hiked 15.9 miles ¢ a personal record.April 3 Day 11: We were up by 6:15 am and out by 7:20. Now 500 feet doesn¢t sound like a lot. It is how far from a fire engine you are supposed to stay back. When you are looking up 500 feet it is really like climbing a ladder. It was at Albert Mountain, straight up, we passed the 100 mile mark. We got to Winding Stair Gap an hour earlier than expected after hiking another 15.9 miles and took the shuttle into Franklin NC. On the trail we saw Shane and Dudley. Shane said Dudley was a couch dog that was becoming a Wilderness Dog. We checked into the Sapphire Inn, ate pizza and watched ¢Back to the Future¢ 1 and 2. April 4 Day 12 was a zero day.