Date: 2009-05-05
From: Spring Mountain Shelter

To: Hemlock Hollow
Miles today: 9.5

Drinking the HemlockAfter a long night of rain, we awoke to a very misty morning with fog so thick we couldn't see 10 yards in front of us. We took our time breaking camp and making breakfast before hitting the trail late in the morning with the intention of hiking 9 miles to the Little Laurel Shelter. We had heard of a hostel about a half mile off the trail 6 miles up and planned to make a brief stop there to warm up and get a bowl of hot soup.Soon after starting off, the sky cleared and the sun came out for the first time in nearly a week. The temperature rose quickly and turned our cold damp hike into an outdoor steam bath. I was worried that I hadn't put on sunscreen that morning, but those concerns were soon laid to rest.In short order, the clouds rolled back in and the rains came back, often quite hard. The drops were heavy and cold, so we were reluctant to stop for fear of getting cold. I had already learned that rain gear was mostly useless, getting you more wet from sweat than the rain, so didn't even bother putting it on. During one brief lull in the rain we paused for a late morning snack when we heard some strange music, and even stranger singing, coming down the trail behind us. It was Gnarly, trying to teach himself to play his miniature hiking guitar and making up songs and lyrics as he hiked along - which he unabashedly sang at the top of his lungs. So we waited for him to catch up and said hello.No sooner did he arrive in the gap where we were breaking than the rains started again, and quickly turned to a downpuor. So we hastily strapped on our packs and made a quick pace to outrun the chill. All the while Gnarly continued to hike behind us, strumming his guitar and loudly singing his barely comprehensible lyrics. We enjoyed the serenade, but coudn't slow down or pause long enough to make any sense of them.Trudging through the rain, we finally made it to Allen Gap, where the rain paused long enough for us to have lunch. Gnarly caught up, and after pausing for a brief chat, pushed on past. We continued to hear his singing echo off the mountains for a while after he left.As we crossed through the gap, we saw the signs advertising the Hemlock Hollow Hostel and Cabins just 2 miles away. Just as we contemplated whether to stop or not, the rains started again, so we made a beeline up out of the gap to Log Cabin Raod, which led to Hemlock Hollow about a half mile off the trail.Hemlock Hollow lies along the Lower Paint Creek and consists of a bunkhouse, a half dozen cabins, a showerhouse, store, partially constructed restaraunt and a house where the owners, Fred and Hattie Ramsey, live. Fred is a retired phone company worker from Tampa who bought the land Hemlock Hollow sits on 15 years earlier when he was forced into early retirement. Except for the anti-bellum house, which was there when he bought the place and needed extensive work to make it habitable, all the buildings were constructed by his sons from lumber cut from is land and milled at the local sawmill. Hattie ran the store and kept the books. Hemlock Hollow seemed like an oasis rising out of an endless desert of rain. Chilled to the bone, we got a cup of coffee, heated up some frozen cheeseburgers and watched the rain from the covered deck overlooking the creek. We were pleasantely surprised to find Bobby (BJ Charlie), Heather, Trampoline and Odin greeting us on the porch, who were soon joined by Classic Rock and 10x10 - all fellow hikers we had met at Standing Bear Farm.There were a few others as well, most of whom were injured in some fashion and several either contemplating getting off the trail (either for a short break or for good) or already having made the decision. We heard stories of several others who had given up and left in the previous week and got the impression that suddenly thruhikers were droppping off the trail like flies.After spending a couple of hours watching the rain fall, and realizing it wasn't going to let up, we gave in and registered for a tent site. Doing the math, we decided that splitting a single tent site four ways would be quite cheap. Hattie set us up under a pavilion so our tent could be out of the rain, which would also allow us to store our gear outside of the tent, making room for the four of us. We took hot showers, washed our wet and muddy clothes in the creek, and hung them out to dry under the pavilion, ate more cheeseburgers and crashed early.