Date: 2014-04-05
From: Hiawasee, GA / Dick's creek gap

To: Muskrat creek shelter
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Saturday, April 5: day 7Woke up at 7 to a cold day in Hiawasee. Wrote my journal for a bit and had GORP & a beer for breakfast. Hey! We can't let the beer go to waste. Took a shower and cleaned up one more time before we hit the trail at 11. A late shuttle so we had some time to relax, hit the town one more time for a final supply run, and let our wet clothes we washed in the bathtub dry out for a few more hours. Off to the trail. Started around 11:30 from Dick's creek gap. Got dropped off by the Budget inn shuttle with Ethan & Hunter. I said goodbye to them and hope to see them on the trail soon. It's a cooler afternoon with winds on the mountain tops. Good hiking weather. Lots of steep climbs. Hoping to get to NC today. Making good time despite starting late. Up and down the mountain tops. Boy, the AT sure does love switchbacks. Today there are tons of them. All helping us climb 900 vertical ft in less than a mile. Then down those same feet only to go back up again. Jolly was only going 4.7 miles to the first shelter today. To short a day for me so I keep going hoping to to hit the GA/NC border. End up making about 12-13 miles and stop to take pictures at the GA/NC border sign. Nothing fancy. Looks likes it's been there for 20 years. Right before the 2nd shelter I stop at a beautiful cliff to gaze over a town and the rolling hola and lakes behind it. A picturesque site. The cliff itself had a nice sandstone overlook with green grass surrounding it. Trees just about to burst into life surrounding the opening. I sat down for a bit, knowing the shelter is just a quarter mile off. At a the 2nd shelter I see tons of people. Well relatively tons. Seems like everyone who went to town ended up at this shelter. It's a small one too, fits about 6 so the 20 others (and me) are camping around it. I'm only staying because it's right near a nice stream and gathering water for tomorrow will be quick and easy. A dinner disaster!As I was preparing a nice dinner of rice, sausage, and shredded cheese tortillas and some hot chocolate, I noticed I need more fuel in my alcohol stove. I'll just drop some more in (like I've done a hundred times before) to keep it burning and cooking my Spanish rice. As I finished pouring the alcohol into the stove, my cap of alcohol came to close to the open flame. The fumes from the alcohol lite up and started to burn. But I didn't notice it. So, I started to screw on a burning cap into a 1/4 full bottle. I suddenly heard a load POP! And the alcohol inside the bottle started to ignite! I tossed the bottle and started a mini forest fire. Panic. Leaves burning and catching others on fire. I was far enough away from other campers that they didn't notice and within 15 sec. I'd have a deadly blaze. So I grabbed my full 2L water bottle that I've been using for cooking and tried to douse the flames. No luck. I grabbed my other 3/4L water container, that I just filled with Nestea and tried again to put the fire out. Almost there! I grabbed the wet leaves to smother the burning ones. I stamped frantically at the flames hoping to extinguish the unceasing fire. After about 30 frantic nerve-breaking seconds I had it controlled and extinguished. It was the most frightening turn of events I've had to deal with as an outdoorsman. Dry leaves and alcohol could have started a giant ford t fire. No more alcohol stoves for me. In my haste to extinguish the fire, I kicked and destroyed my homemade stove. No more hot meals for me. At least for a little while. Hopefully, with a call to Mom and Dad they can send me my commercial stove that runs on gas. After calming down, cleaning up and searching for the caps to my water bottles (in the burnt leaves), I finally sat down to dinner. Cold tortillas, cheese and sausage. Not as good as warm rice and hit chocolate. But it will do. At least I didn't destroy my tent, more gear, and a forest.