Ups and Downs and a Wildfire

Day 4 – 15.3 miles to Low Gap Shelter

Day 5 – 15.4 miles to Tray Mountain Shelter

Day 6 – 10.9 miles to Dick’s Creek Gap

Day 7 – 4.5 miles to Plum Orchard Shelter

Day 8 – around 13 miles to Standing Indian Shelter

I said in the last post that I would take it easy to slowly let my body get used to the trail life. Well, that thought went out the window for the next couple of days.

Bloody cold on Blood Mountain

The morning at Wood’s Hole shelter was freezing. We hit the lower 30 degrees that night. So everyone was ready to get going to get warm. I heard before that Blood Mountain is a pretty tough climb, but I didn’t think it was that bad, and I actually enjoyed it. Up on top it was windy and cold, but I managed to snap a picture of the mountain scene. It was like a little window to a beautiful view.

Pizza and resupply at Neel Gap

So Neel Gap is the first easy resupply spot that you hit going NOBO. It sits right on the trail, there is an outfitter and you can get a backpack shakedown. They will go through your back to help you lighten it. I didn’t do it since I felt pretty good about it, but when I weighted it, it was 34 pounds with 3-4 days worth of food. Uff, still a little bit on the heavier side, but I would ditch my too heavy power bank and some other stuff later at Hiawassee. I met a couple of people I know from the trail, split a pizza and then headed out again.

My goal was to hike around 12 miles again, but I also knew there were a couple of friends ahead, and I wasn’t quite sure where they would stop. And then trail magic hit again! I met two trail maintainer talking about trail magic at Hogpen Gap, which was down the mountain from where I wanted to blue blaze to Whitley Gap Shelter. Of course I was easily convinced you just don’t miss out on food when you are on trail! That was where I met my friends again, so obviously it was the right choice to make. The people were so kind there, and the food was amazing. 

And the trail goes up and down

So, I’m hiking with the kind of people that are like me. It’s amazing (and probably not healthy) how we push each other to keep going and getting those miles in. But that wasn’t our original plan. We wanted to do Low Gap Shelter to Dick’s Creek Gap in 3.5 days and then stay at the Green Dragon Hostel in Hiawassee. However, the hostel only had capacity for the day before. So we sat down at Unicoi Gap (at another trail magic spot) and made the decision to do the distance in 2.5 days. It would be easy. Just finishing another 15 mile day, and then only 11 miles to the road. Little did we know that this stretch included the worst climbs of Georgia. So it was no wonder that we got to the road at Dick’s Creek Gap sweaty and with hurting feet. We got awarded with a hiker BBQ picnic in Hiawassee and a hot shower at the hostel.

Fleeing from the fire

Hiking to Plum Orchard Shelter (the last shelter in Georgia), we spotted smoke on the other side of the valley. The next morning, we were informed that 10 miles of the AT were closed due to a wildfire, right on the section we were about to hike that day. So again, we needed to adjust our plans. We were thinking about taking a shuttle from Blue Ridge Gap, but cell service was pretty bad there, and then two of our group asked the firemen if we could take a forest road trying to go around the closed area. This resulted in a crazy detour including climbing a hill to avoid a river crossing, 8 miles of road walk and then the worst kind of trail trying to circle back to the AT. There were so many blowdowns, we had to climb over tree trunks every 20 feet, and it ended in a climb almost 100% straight up the mountain.

This is how we left Georgia and entered into North Carolina. One state down, thirteen more to go! While I was bummed we missed the border sign on trail, we got our own road sign. While the day was definitely on the harder side, I wouldn’t want to miss it. We even dipped into the river at some point, and I’m here for all these sorts of adventures.

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