Date: 2007-03-16
From: Low Gap Shelter

To: Unicoi Gap
Miles today: 9.4
Weather: overcast clouds

It started raining harder later in the evening yesterday after everyone was quiet and in their sleeping bags. It rained all night but thankfully didn't get very cold. The morning was hard packing everything up because everyone was trying to stay out of the rain and there was hiking gear everywhere. Mud was getting tracked into the shelter and it was hard keeping everything clean. We got on the trail by 8:05am and walked in rain and fog all day. It was sometimes hard to tell if it was raining or the water was just coming off the trees. The wind blew pretty much horizontally and sometimes felt like sleet. I didn't wear gloves most of the day and my hands got cold, wet, and shriveled up like prunes. I finally did put my glove liners on to keep warmer. We were wearing our full raingear to keep dry and warm. Initially I was too warm but it got colder as the day went on. We were trying to get to Unicoi Gap as soon as we could because Tater and Diane were picking us up for the weekend. When we got to Blue Mountain Shelter which is just over 2 miles from Unicoi Gap it was cold with the wind blowing but we had a little time to kill so Toto cooked a dinner. Soon Megan and Daniel came in with Tucker, their dog, and we unloaded our last 2 meals on them. We have a food resupply waiting for us at Tater's that we had brought from home. So now we have more room to carry all we have waiting for us at Tater's cabin. At Blue Mountain Shelter Dirtnap, Caveman, Lumpy, and Billy the Kid came in and then hiked on. Dirtnap was still barefooted and said his feet were not cold!! Lumpy saw a pair of athletic shoes with very good tread on them in the shelter that someone had apparently left behind for who knows what reason. Either they were extra shoes someone was carrying and left because they didn't want to carry them any longer or someone forgot them. Lumpy picked them up and carried them out with him. He said they were his size. Dirtnap had no interest in them at all.   A hiker was all huddled in the corner of the shelter in a sleeping bag. Toto asked what her name was and she said she was Bucket (because she carries a collapsible bucket that she carries water in from the stream for filtering). We had met her on the first day we hiked but hadn't recognized her and she didn't have a trail name then. Last night she had camped about 2 miles before the shelter at Chattahooche Gap . She set her tent up in the rain and the spot was not level. Her tent is one that has to be staked and she didn't have it staked out well enough to keep the water from pooling on top and it ended up collapsing on her about 2 hours after she went to sleep. So from that point on she was awake most of the night pushing up on the top of the tent to dump the water off. She had also gotten up several times during the night to try to restake the tent in the rain but was not successful in getting it staked the way it needed to be. So she had hiked this morning to this shelter to stay the day. She had slept for several hours after getting here this morning but did not feel she had enough sleep to get to the next shelter and her tent was too wet to set up at any camping spot between this shelter and the next one. So her plan was to stay in the shelter until tomorrow morning before hiking out. So we told her if she could hike down to the gap she could come with us to the cabin. Tater had already told us to invite any hikers we wanted to invite. So Bucket got her pack packed and hiked down with us. We had to wait only about an hour before our hosts drove up and brought us back to the cabin for showers before heading out to eat. It felt so good to be in where it was warm and dry. We went to Daniel's Steak House and had the seafood and fried chicken buffet. The restaurant is decorated in Gone With The Wind pictures, dolls, etc. An interesting place and the atmosphere great.We went through our pack and decided to send some things home. Mike's boots he wore down here, of course, have to go and a few other smaller things to make our packs a pound or so lighter. We will hike 16.1 miles tomorrow which will put us a day ahead of what we would normally do. A good night's sleep tonight with no cold, wind, bugs, or mice. We could not ask for anything better!!         Life is Great!