Date: 2010-04-24
From: Unaka mtn

To: Greasy Creek Friendly
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: overcast clouds

Very early, when it was barely light, we heard raindrops on the tent fly. We bolted awake and packed up faster than I thought possible. Our usual morning routine is for us one of us to wake up and see the other still asleep and go back to sleep, repeat this several times. Then once we are both awake, we take our time getting out of the tent. Eventually, Didge gets up and retrieves the bear bag and starts cooking breakfast while I either sleep in some more or slowly get awake, maybe change clothes, maybe stuff the sleeping bags and maybe deflate the Neoair mattresses. Then when the food is ready, I usually eat in the tent. Once done eating, I finish whatever changing & packing is left to do, and then take the tent down and pack up.        When I hiked solo, I woke up, got my food bag (or preferably had someone else in the shelter hand it to me cause I almost never bearbagged- usually just hung in the shelter on a mouse trapeze), ate a pastry or granola bar , packed up and started hiking. No changing clothes, cause for the most part I just wore the same clothes all the time. yep kinda gross. Now I carry a thin cotton shirt to sleep in , which is also a town shirt- at least I'm not sweating in it, tho it still stinks. I also carry cotton sleep shorts which I never did before.        But today, we both packed up our stuff asap and got the tent down , packs mostly assembled, pack covers on. But by then, there was no rain, so we sat and ate a leisurely breakfast and were still hiking well before 8, by far a record for us. We got to Cherry Gap shelter and took a break to get water. Pebbles and Tigerwoods were still waking up and we hung out with them for awhile. They said something to the effect of maybe we'll get trail magic today and how they couldn't wait to come back next year and totally derail hikers' plans for the day. Nothing turns a planned 16 mile day into a 10 like running into someone cooking up beer can chicken with fresh salad, green beans, and several coolers with your choice of frosty cold beverages. And 3.5 miles later, thats exactly we ran into.Pebbles and Tigerwoods totally called it. 2009 hikers Gorgonzola and Denali put on the most impressive trail magic spread ever. They are a couple that met on the trail last year, she lived and worked up in Alaska before the trail, hence the name Denali. The beer can chicken wasn't ready yet, so we waited salivating all over the place. Didge drank two beers while we were there and I had a couple sodas.         We only had four miles to do to Greasy Creek Friendly, so we were in no hurry. We saw Nemo, Yahtzee and Carrie again there as well as Pebbles and Tigerwoods. A few other hikers passed by as well- only stopping for a brief while- Atlas a young guy wearing a cotton tank top and work pants but flying up the trail. Check this out, we have done 10 plus miles the last 4 days in a row!         We got to the turn off to Greasy Creek just as it was starting to rain. The beers Didge drank were slowing him down, so I went ahead. We didn't really get wet before we got there, but we did stop to put pack on and such. Tango had told Connie we were coming but Tango had moved on a couple days ago. I hope we can catch up with her again, she is one of the only people we've met out there who is hiking about the same speed as us. We had spots out in the bunk house, but hung out inside the rest of the evening.         Apparently, there is a bug that people are coming out of Erwin with, seems like everyone that has it stayed at Uncle Johnnie's. A woman named Seeker is here and pretty knocked down by whatever it is. There is also Holysmoke and Cotton here and Holysmoke isn't feeling well either. I kind of feel like I might be getting a yeast infection- great....