Date: 2015-04-02
From: Indian Grave Gap

To: Greasy Creek Hostel
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

The morning started out great with a double dose of trail magic since I woke up with fresh grounds so it was banana filled pancakes stacked sky high. I took off from the leap frog after I'd stuffed my belly with food and pack with gear. I ran into another round of trail magic when I got down to the road there was a man there with some fresh fruit and kool aid so I stopped for another bite to eat and a little conversation. The hike itself was pretty good and ran into just about everyone at Cherry Gap for lunch, I came in between groups so I started with the first group and finished with the second. There was also some more trail magic at the shelter since the care taker had left a wad of slim jims hanging from the mouse lines. Lunch was great with the trail magic and sun poking out from behind the clouds to warm us up for a bit. The rest of the hike into Greasy Creek was great and I got another dose of trail magic when I hit 107 from Casper the Friendly AT van. Casper was possibly one of the coolest old guys I've met, how could a 70 year old man with a Mohawk be anything but awesome?Thank god I was paying attention when I got to the crossing for Greasy Creek because I could hardly tell where I was supposed to go. I looked around for about 10 minutes before I noticed the rocks on the ground spelling out GCH. I had been rereading the instruction in AWOL the entire time I was looking around and checked them again before I went down the old logging road. It was pretty sketchy walking down that old road since there was literally no markings on any of the trees or any cairns.I put on some music and decided i would give myself 15 minutes to walk down the road and if I didn't see anything I'd hike back up. It wasn't looking good till the last few minutes and even then the first sight of civilization was bleak. All I saw was some old run down barns that had fallen over with no trespassing signs posted all over them. The next property I came across left me feeling even more unsure with tarps covering the fencing of the entire property, I'd been warned ahead of time that her neighbor wasn't friendly to thru-hikers and it definitely looked that way.About 500 yards after the start of the fencing I saw the Greasy Creek Friendly with a sign directing hikers to the front door. Unfortunately for me she wasn't there when I got in and had a note on the door instructing us to give her a call and hold tight. It honestly felt like a scene from deliverance and I was left waiting on the front porch for the rednecks to come out of the hills. I wanted to get on the phone with someone stat to help settle my nerves so I gave Mary a call. After a while seeker showed up and I was expecting him to be with Hot Pants and Roadside but neither of them ever made it in, they couldn't find the marking for the trail. Me and seeker talked for a bit about how sketchy the walk down had been and after about 20 minutes the owner Connie finally showed up. Luckily for me the package mom sent arrived a day early and I wouldn't be forced to hang around an extra day. The evening we spent there was more than interesting to say the least Connie is quite the character.While she was one of the sweetest ladies I've met on the trail she is also one of the craziest, but in a good a way. She completely embodied what the trail should be like from her low prices to her friendly demeanor. As things started winding down for the night Connie asked us if we'd mind helping with the cleaning asking if we'd clean the oven so I laughingly said sure and started on the first half of it. We started watching the matrix and before it was over we were too tired to keep our eyes open so went to hit the hay but Seeker wasn't allowed to until he cleaned the oven. I just about died laughing and brought an almost perfect close to an already interesting evening.