Date: 2012-04-13
From: Whistling Gap Camp Site 

To: Erwin, TN 
Miles today: 13.2
Weather: broken clouds

Last night was not as cold so we all got a good night of sleep and the first thing we did when we woke up was start up the fire again. We were all heading to town for the night so we we were all in a good mood. We all packed up and were on the trail by 8:30am. We had four big climbs to do today and the rest was down hill into town and of course, the first climb was right off the bat. We got to the top in no time went right back down, to go right back up the biggest climb of the day. Once at the top, the trail slowly went down for four miles so we were moving pretty quickly until our third climb up to the next shelter - No Buisiness Knob Shelter. We took a break and ate our lunch there. After lunch we once again started down another gradual down hill. On our way down, we ran into Swinging Jane and Spirit, they knew some people in the area and they jumped up the trail from Hot Springs to Erwin to slack pack south bound for a few days back to Hot Spring. ((For thoes of you that don't know what 'slack packing' is slack packing is when you leave all your gear except water and maybe a some warm clothing with someone and they pick you up at road crossings and either you pick up your gear there or go back to town). We said our goodbyes for now and headed up our last climb of the day. The first part of the climb was easy and we got to what we thought was the top but soon found that the trail followed the ridgeline up and down five little climbs. It was like a roller coster and we were all a little mad at the trail maintainers for making us go up and down so much but soon got to the top and we could finally see Erwin and that made us all happy. From there it was all downhill to the town so we all but took off running down the trail to get there as soon as we could. It seemed like it took forever to get down to town but we finally made it! We headed into Uncle Johnnys Hiker Hostel to get our mail drops and a cold drink. The hostel was full of hikers and we stayed there for about an hour and all got caught up on how everyone was doing. SOS showed up and we talked to him and found out that his wife was coming to pick him up and take him to town. When she got there, they offered to take Tortuise, Hare, Big Sky and I into town so we could get a room at the Holliday Inn Express. We all pilled in along with our packs and drove into town. We split a room between the four of us. The first order of business for us all was: showers! Once we were all clean and feeling great, we called a local trail angel Miss Janet to get a ride to the other end of town to eat at Hardees and to buy food for the next few days. Miss Janet showed up at the hotel and we headed to Hardees to fill our empty stomachs. Miss Janet is a very well known trail angel who devotes most of her time driving and helping hikers out in any way she can. She is one of the nicest people I have ever met, she totally lives for the trail and helping hikers. She had some personal erans to run so we agreed the she would come back when she was done to pick us up and take us back to the hotel. The first thing we did was hit up the Hardees and this one had the new Red Burito side so I got a Six Dollar Thick Burger, Chillie dog, a toco, large curley fry and a large cherry coke and it was gone in no time. We then crossed the street to go to the dollar store to buy food but I was so full I could not even look at food so I just perused through the clothing section while everyone else did their food shopping. We were then picked up by Miss Janet again and we all went back to the hotel. We invited Miss Janet to our room to hang out and she happily took our offer because she was driving hikers around town non stop all day. We sat around for an hour or so and just talled trail stuff and we all picked her brain about any trail questions we had. After she left we did our laundary and called it a night at around midnight.