Date: 2015-03-04
From: Unicoi Gap

To: Hogpen Gap
Miles today: 14.3
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was not what I expected earlier in the week, mostly dry and unseasonably warm. Today was a good day to meet people. Our SoBo hike started at 7:00 AM at Unicoi Gap (close to Helen, GA) and ended not long about 1:15 PM at Hogpen Gap (where we finished NoBo yesterday). It was high 50¢s when we set out and the temp climbed into the early afternoon. The sky was overcast with a little mist in low spots, but dry and pleasant.Since we were SoBo, we met a lot of people, 36 to be exact, and all but 4 were NoBo. Today we took more pictures of the hikers, not all, but many of them. Since we meet so many, we just don¢t remember their trail names. So today, I tried to take more pix and Princess tried to keep notes on her iPhone. I¢ve included some of the pix in the TJ picture gallery, so you can check there if you know someone who is in the same section. We tried to stop briefly to chat with them and I¢ve added some info in the description associated with each photo. I¢m sure some of the info is wrong, so I¢ll come back and edit the material from time to time. Nonetheless, enjoy the photos. As you can see, everyone was in a good mood, enjoying the weather and relatively benign terrain.We started with the hardest climb of the day up Blue Mountain, a steady up for about a mile & a half. But it wasn¢t as bad as I expected and then we had 8 miles of gradual descent, punctuated with some small ups & downs, to Low Gap Shelter. We camped at Low Gap last year and met Potter (a SoBo¢er who was just finishing) and we reminisced there for a few minutes. Then there were a couple of shorter (but tough) climbs and a ridge walk before we emerged at Hogpen Gap. Somewhere about an hour before Hogpen, a light drizzle set in and we broke out our ponchos. It was enough to we us down, but not a hard rain. You can see the effects in a final picture we took of Marlboro Man and Shaggy. Afterwards, we returned to the Helendorf River Inn in Helen, GA and cleaned up. Ranger and Gay picked out another restaurant (I¢ll fill in the names later) for us to try, and it was warm enough for us to sit out on the covered patio for dinner. I chowed down a big bacon cheeseburger and Princess put a dent in a large pizza - we¢ll have the rest for breakfast and lunch on the trail tomorrow. The special of the day was $2 drafts. We moved on to The Hayloft, where we had a few more beers and then headed back to the motel. Helen is definitely a tourist town, patterned after a German village with lots of eating, drinking, stores, ice cream, coffeeshop, etc. all within easy walking distance in downtown. We think it¢s a great place to stay, with a good hiker rate here at the Helendorf. The only drawback is that it¢s about 9 miles from the Unicoi AT trailhead. So a hiker needs transportation, but once in Helen, everything is close by.The weather changes tomorrow, mostly during our hike. It will start out around 50 deg, then drop steadily during the day to the low 40¢s by the time we finish. The probability of rain is high throughout and doesn¢t diminish until about 5 PM as the temperature continues to fall to freezing. The temps I¢m quoting are from the Helen forecast, it will be colder and more windy on the mountaintops and ridges. We expect sleet mixed in with the rain - hopefully no worse than that. So we have to be prepared with cold weather gear, it will be 15 to 20 deg colder than today. It¢s time to get serious. The good news is that afterwards we will drive back to Ranger¢s house for one more night - our last night there. For those of you who may be tracking our hiking progress on https://share.delorme.com/Rocketman, I didn¢t get the tracking pins set properly today, which is disturbing because now there will be a gap in our trail. I¢ll try to do better tomorrow. If anyone would like to track us, post a note in our Guest Book and I¢ll send you the password.