Date: 2003-03-18
From: Low Gap Shelter

To: Dicks Creek Gap
Miles today: 25.5
Weather: overcast clouds

We reached Hiawassee today and booked into the Holiday Inn. Tomorrow will be our first "off-trail" day. The last three days have been grim. Dense mists and incessant rain. Making camp on Blue Mt on Sunday night, and especially Trey Mt last night, were quite miserable experiences. In each case we arrived cold, tired and, at Trey Mt., soaked to the skin. We could have found room in the Blue Mountain shelter, but the logbook was so badly eaten away that we decided to throw up the tent rather than have a horde of mice harass us through the night. The trek that day was relatively short at 7.2 miles and the elevation profile looked quite benign on the o/s map. What it didn't show was how rocky the long path round Blue Mt. would be, and it was a big test of boots, knees and ankles. As we have discovered here at Hiawassee, that's knocked one or two hikers off the AT. When we arrived at Trey Mt. last night we really were in a bit of a state and badly needed to get dry and warmed up a.s.a.p. The shelter was full. It was a single-deck affair, officially held six people but about eight were squeezed in sitting in a line with their backs to the wall, and their lower halves cocooned in their sleeping bags. Strangely they found our predicament when we arrived quite funny, lots of jocular remarks and one comment that "I'll bet you wish you'd gone to Helen (the nearest town) now!"I had no time for this and stomped off to put up our tent. The rain was pelting down at this point, but we got the tent up in double quick time, got the inside reasonably dry, put on our warmest clothes (the monkey-man fleece is an absolute Godsend!) and slid into our sleeping bags. It was 3.30pm!We slept for a couple of hours, had a cold supper in our tent (a feast of tortillas, honey and peanut butter), and, with the rain still coming down, just settled down for the night apart from calls of nature and the need to hang up the food bag. Today has been a grind. I started to cough quite a bit through the night and seem to have a cold coming on. Everything in our packs is damp or wet and probably adds another 2 or 3 lbs to what we are carrying. It's been demanding too, 10.6 miles to Dick's Creek Gap with some big hills to deal with along the way. Like yesterday the constant rain and lack of any shelter discouraged us from making anything but the briefest stops to rest. We reached Dick's Creek Gap about 4pm, on US 76, and immediately set about hitching a lift into Hiawassee. This wasn't easy. Two dozen or so vehicles went by with no desire to pick up two soaked, muddy specimens like us. Without the constant activity of walking, we were getting cold when a van pulled in from the other direction to drop off a hiker at the trail. The driver offered us a ride back into town and off we went. Our saviour was Jack Van Nus, a local painter and decorator, who, like everyone else we've met here, was pleased to know that we were from Scotland, and brought us up to date on what is happening in Iraq. Like many others I've spoken to here, he is enormously impressed by the commitment and political risk taken by Tony Blair. Our driver, a lovely man, delivered us to the door of the Holiday Inn and refused to take anything for his trouble even though we'd burned up 22 miles worth of gas.