Date: 2014-05-05
From: Catpen Gap

To: Hot Springs,NC
Miles today: 11.7

After a windy night, we all slept in a little bit with the exception of Yogi. I woke up around 6:15 and saw no one up and went back to bed, about an hour later I heard movement outside my tent. I got up and saw Yogi had already left around six, when he wants to hike, he gets up and goes. We all started around the same time but slowly distanced ourselves as people stopped for various reasons.   The hike was about twelve miles and mostly downhill. The weather has been warming up as of late and I'm not going to complain as the weather overall so far has been amazing. I put some Lumineers on and booked it down the trail, my knee has been feeling amazing lately so I had a good pace going until I came to a screeching halt when I saw a big old rattlesnake laying on the trail sunning itself. I stood there for about ten minutes to see if it would slither away but luck was not on my side. Luckily the terrain around the trail wasn't too bad so I bushwhacked and held onto trees and I made my way around the snake, it didn't move at all the whole time. Then I was off agin flying down the trail, it's amazing what motivation a mail package of food and a night in town can do to a hiker. While I was approaching a gap and about to head uphill, I saw three piles of cans laying on the floor and I started muttering to myself how disgusting people are but as I approached I realized I judged too harshly. Some trail angel left piles of soda, water and bananas for thru hikers,three days in a row of trail magic, I'm getting spoiled out here.    I hung around and had a banana and few sodas, talked for a bit and headed off. I was halfway there and wanted to get into town early to hang out. I got into town around one and followed the sidewalk which has the A.T symbol in it, it was pretty cool. I saw Guppy and his friend, Gamma Goat in front of a convenience store, they were pissed as we were in a dry county and couldn't get any liquor. Coincidentally, I had some Jim Beam coming in my package so that perked them up a bit and they let me stay in their motel room for free. I saw the rest of the group in various spots in town, most of them were camping about a mile outside of town by the river. Hot Springs wasn't what I envisioned in my head, I had this grandiose image of Smalltown USA with houses with white picket fences and awesome little food places. In reality it's a small rural town win everything on its' Main Street that was a few blocks long with a few restaurants and some other stores plus no cell phone reception. I was a bit disappointed but it wasn't too bad overall. I went out to dinner with Guppy and Gamma Goat and soon after Tim and James met up with us, Trucker and Atlas were already there so we just moved the tables together. I had some good local beers, strong but good, one big perk of the trip is trying local beers.   We went our separate ways afterwards and they headed down to the river while we picked up some beer and went back to the motel. We hung out there for a bit and decided to walk down to the river and hang out with the rest of the gang. When we got there it was an interesting scene. You walk down the trail which is sandwiched between a mountain and a river with not much real estate in between. There were tents, hammocks and fires scattered everywhere, it looked like a scene from some post apocalyptic movie. We found everyone in different spots I hung out with Delaware and Gadget for a bit, it was good times even though I may have had a beer or two too many. I regret not staying at the river, it was a crazy scene but I'm not to hung up on it, I had a great time drinking with Guppy and Gamma Goat.   I don't think I'm going to take a zero day here, there's not much to do so I'll probably start late and try to figure out how to get all this food in my bag, I may have went a tad overboard this time around.