North Carolina!

Yesterday I hike the 6 or so miles in to Dick’s Creek Gap. As luck would have it, the van for Top of Georgia hostel had just arrived and was taking “Full Throttle” and his wife, “Grasshopper” just down the road. I knew they ran to town a lot and asked for a ride. We stopped briefly at the hostel and I saw “Salmon” there rocking the scrubs. ToG offers scrubs while they do your laundry. That’s really nice. I heard good things about it generally.

Their shuttle drove me to the Holiday after dropping off a few of their guests at a burger place. The timing was perfect because “Rock Ocean” and his friends were just getting ready to leave and snagged a ride with the ToG shuttle. I laid all my stuff out to dry, which is lovely. I ran errands at the post office. I got my postcards my mom sent and sent home a sil nylon ground sheet (I got some Tyvek to use). On the way I ran in to Salmon headed to Hardy’s and then found him again in the Ingles. I sent a few things with him to the hiker box at ToG (I don’t need 4 rolls of TP for 3 days). We had a nice chat too. He’s becoming one of my trail friends and we seem to be hitting similar miles per day.

I ordered a ton of food from Big Al’s and ate to my hearts content. I ran into a nice, older couple out hiking that was doing laundry. I forget their names. I also saw “Mojo” and “Voyageur” as they headed to the steak house.

I barely slept at all that night though. I hiked too few miles, ate too much and was too comfortable.

In the morning I wrapped up my foot with an Ace bandage. This helped tremendously during the day. I caught a ride back to Dick’s Creek with “Voyageur”. The morning was uneventful, but as I got closer to the border, the Dartmouth girls were hiking back. They had day-hiked the last leg. I chatted with the slackpacker, Robert a ways. He’s had his full weight since Unicoi Gap now. I also met the British fellow named “Ginger Tea”. The climb up the last miles to the border were steep. I crossed with “Easy Strider” and a couple of other ladies. They all camped at Bly Gap along with Robert and “Ginger Tea”.

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I pushed on. North Carolina starts off with an incredibly steep climb. Easily the steepest so far. Its followed up with another that is equally rough. All that and no views.

I made it in to Muskrat Creek Shelter pretty tired. It was crowded. After resting for a short while I hiked on a few miles to Wateroak Gap. I’m camped here for the night and got set up before the drizzle started.

Total miles today: 13.7
AT mile: 83.3

2 thoughts on “North Carolina!

    1. Thanks for reminding me. I had one of the crossing and forgot to post it. I’ll try to put some more up along the way.

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