Date: 2013-03-17
From: Otto, NC residence

To: Locust Cove Gap
Miles today: 10.3

(In which I hitchhike four times and nero up an endless mountain)I wind up lingering a while with Avril and Joel. In the morning light I see their farming is more extensive than I thought. There are plenty of chickens, a few adult goats with lots of playful kids, a couple horses, a bull, and some farm dogs and cats. Joel was planning to head up to Franklin midmorning for a soccer game - he is in a local amateur league - but is not playing today due to an injury. Avril makes breakfast of waffles, eggs, ham, and smoothies and I linger for this. While Joel repairs the fence on the goat enclosure, I help Avril move some feed bags. The chickens seem excited to have company, and are swarming around the shed. The fowl sea parts readily and in amusing fashion, though. Once these tasks are complete, I thank Avril for hosting me and head to Franklin with Joel.I do a small resupply at the Ingle's in town. I don't need too much, and soon I am headed up the hill to Route 28 to begin heading back toward Nantahala. I walk toward the edge of town, though the road passes through suburbs. I start trying to hitch while I am still in the suburban area, and get my first ride near the edge of the suburbs. This gal has a friend who started the AT at Amicalola today, and she is returning from bringing a drop box out to a post office. She drops me off at her turn off Route 28, and I immediately hoist my pack and solicit the approaching traffic for a ride. The next car to pass me pulls off and the two 20-somethings get me a few miles up the road to a gas station a few miles away. As they drop me off, an old Ford pickup is about to depart to the north. I ask the driver if he can get me any distance north, and he agrees to help me out. He is driving up the river to check out a new boat ramp, and gets me much farther up the road to the side road that crosses the river back toward Tellico Gap.The road is very quiet far out of town here. A few cars go by as I walk northbound, and after a short period of road walking someone pulls off to pick me up. They are going to the NOC for a whitewater guide course, and get me all the way back to the Trail. Here I am surprised to see Dumbledore - she has been walking long days to catch up after a couple zero days to recover from heel injury. I get lunch with her, Dozer, and Grasshopper - the latter two are North Carolina hikers. Dozer is finishing a 2012 hike which started as a southbound hike and was derailed by Hurricane Sandy. I mention encountering Piper at the dance, and Dozer is surprised to hear the name. It turns out he hiked from Maine with her until his hike was derailed.Grasshopper is spending the rest of the day here but Dozer and Dumbledore are pushing on. I move out first. The Trail climbs almost 3000 feet over six miles, and the first shelter is a mile after the climb ends. I take my time on the uphill but it is not very difficult. The weather is mild with no wind, and I take many breaks to keep the sweat out of my eyes. I figure it is easier to keep sweat off my glasses than to drop my pack and pull out a clean enough piece of clothing to clean my glasses. One of these stops is at Grassy Gap, which is not a gap so much as it is an arbitrary descent from the ridge. There is a dramatic rock formation jutting out of the mountainside and a side trail below me. Supposedly the trail goes to water, but I cannot discern the trail beyond the first two blue blazes, and I cannot hear the water from where I am.I move on, hoping the next water source is more promising. North Carolina seems less clear than Georgia on marking water sources and their side trails, so I hope the next one is obvious. It turns out it is a trickle of water flowing over a mossy jumble of rocks and dropping off a rock face before crossing the Trail. This is good enough for me, and I drop my pack to refill my water bottle. Dumbledore catches up to me moments later, and Dozer reaches us shortly thereafter. I introduce them to the Jolly Rancher powdered drinks I found at Ingle's. As a loose group, we move forward. I take the lead on the push to 4710 feet on Swim Bald. It is less than three miles to the shelter, but that also involves almost 1200 feet of climbing.The end of the climb is elusive, and a few times it looks like we are about to reach the peak. It turns out the Trail does not reach the top of Swim Bald, but turns off and picks up the ridge running north away from the peak. It runs along the ridge as far until it passes the side trail to Sassafras Gap Shelter. Dumbledore and Dozer move on, aiming to reach the next campground while there is still plenty of daylight. I drop into the shelter as a familiar face is walking out. It's the guy who made himself welcome in our cabin and made everyone uncomfortable back in Neel Gap. I will dub him Party Boy so I don't have to describe him in the future, but hopefully I can outpace him or fall behind from dance zeros and neros. He has not been terribly wise with the weather, and is about as red as one can be.It looks like he is camping right here tonight. The shelter is pretty crowded too, with Robbie being the only very familiar face present. Bailey and his owners are also here, but while I know the others' faces I remain unacquainted with then. I had been considering the push on to the next campsite to join Dumbledore and Dozer, and I decide to follow through. It is in a mile and on top of Cheoah Bald, and I like the idea of catching the sunset and sunrise from a mountaintop. I filter some water at the shelter and move on. I am bit moving too fast on account of walking uphill all afternoon, and the last push to the bald is pretty steep. I make it to the top and there is nobody there. They must have pushed on to the next campground.I take a few photos from the bald's overlooks, but the sun is hidden by clouds and I don't want to wait until sunset to walk down the bald. The next campsite is at Locust Cove Gap, and it is a long descent. I watch the sun set through the trees and continue walking in twilight. It is almost dark enough to resort to my headlamp when I see lights ahead. I have reached the gap, and set up camp. There are a couple good trees for hammocking at the bottom of the campsite. This is my first time camping away from the shelter, so I put extra consideration into stowing everything under my rain fly.Once I have everything situated for the night, I let myself eat dinner. I am dismayed to see that my bottle of honey, in spite of being kept in a plastic bag, has ruptured. Fortunately it was in the bag containing sandwich items separate from the rest of my food bag, and while everything in there is sticky, most things are fine. My dinner winds up being the boiled eggs that Avril had given to me on leaving her house, since they were in their own bag. That bag then is used for the honey and other items that I eat solely to get as much sticky out of my food bag as possible. The honey-soaked bag that had held my sandwich items is replaced by a grocery bag that holds all the remaining sticky items. With my food bag repacked and less sticky, I am able to finally go to sleep well after dark.Peace,