Sunday 17 April 2016

The next morning our neighbour greets us in German in reaction to hearing us speaking Afrikaans. His trail name is Ronan. We talk about the branch falling last night. He tells us about widow makers: a very real factor to keep in mind when selecting a camp spot in order to be safe. When we comment on the difficulty of organising an effective bear cable substitute to stop bears and vermin, he recalls how they had problems with mice chewing through the crates in which the food was kept in Iraq. While we pack up and eat breakfast, he checks on the guy in the hammock that has been down and out since 4 o’ clock yesterday afternoon. As he says, it won’t be a problem to leave him to the bears if he is dead, but they would just like to know. The guy in the hammock gets up quickly and sets off on the trail. Pretty soon we are almost the only ones in the camping ground save for another chap, John from Maryland, who does not seem to be leaving today. We have to do some exhausting climbing up the rest of the mountain, and this seems to be the pattern for the first part of the day. It must have been a tough 3 miles to the shelter for Alistair yesterday. The Rhododendrons grow avidly here and create more shade. For lunch we spread the tarp near the White Oak Stamp and have a leisurely break, staring at the blue sky peering through the bare branches. But despite the break we are tired by the time we have our afternoon break. We hike another mile and are the first ones to arrive at the Standing Indian Mountain shelter. Eventually others arrive: first some young fit guys which basically completed the route we did today and yesterday in one session. Much later the last guy remaining in the camp, John, pitches and also two young girls: one from Tennessee and Phoebe from LA who seems to be ready for more hiking and who introduces herself as Slam! Slam is 19 and has completed the PCT and another long distance route. She started on the PCT when she was 15, missed quite a bit of school and had some trouble readjusting to regular school routine when she got back. We spend a bit of time chatting about mountains, South Africa and long hiking trails. And why people do it. Seems that there are as many reasons as there are hikers.

Some reasons bring tears to the eyes.

Saturday 16 April 2016

Trying to get back on the trail wasn’t so difficult this morning. When we exited the hotel we met up with Dennis the septuagenerian sporting a relatively new beard. He had just arrived to have a well deserved rest. We walked up the hill towards the Mountain outfitters at the Budget Inn - we still needed a canister of gas. It’s in a small garage like building, but has all the necessities. The owner even readjusted Lizette’s backpack and hiking poles. To top everything up we got two lift offers: eventually we got on the back of a truck adorned with heavy eclectic regalia guarding her against bad luck: including amongst others a cross and a grimacing skull dangling beneath the rearview mirror in the swirls of smoke… Now and then you would see the bony fingers with some kind of purple, maybe oval amethyst ring coming round on the steering wheel. Kevin jumped on with us. In the end it was a free ride and two peace signs saw us off at Dick’s Creek Gap where a now familiar group of hikers were sitting at the picnic table. Kevin’s hiking buddy left the trail and he was travelling solo. It was hot and climbing the mountain in the heat of the midday was uncomfortable. During our lunch on the mountain, a tall jovial Englishman called Alistair stops to chat with us. He has a 6 month visa and is attempting to hike 15 miles plus per day. He wants to “accumulate” a few zero days so that he might be able to hire a car and retrace his hike. He affirms some of the negative comments we read on Trip Advisor: he had a chat with some girls who stayed over at the Budget Inn and apparently there are urine stains on the wall. He says a few years back an unfortunate incident occurred when a hiker committed suicide there. Alistair moves on and we pass him later where he is testing out some bagels, cheese and olive oil for lunch. Although we are supposed to do another 6 miles, we really lack the energy. The pine trees increase as we near the border and it feels as if the milder slopes are being replaced by mountain tops with a steep gradient. It also seems drier. Just after we crossed the Georgia North Carolina border, we come across a camping spot with water. A young bunch of guys already settled in with some alcohol and we make the wise decision to carry on further, but not as far as Alistair: he aims to overnight at the shelter three miles further. Just across the first ridge we find the rest of the campers: also removed from the rowdy party below. Our neighbours are an elderly lady from Arizona and an ex soldier “Ronin” who did military service in Iraq. We spend some time looking for the right spot for the bear bag and later during the night we hear a breaking branch. Thinking that we might have lost our entire food supply to a bear, we are relieved when we find out that it was another branch which broke. Difficult to get back to sleep with all the excitement.

Thursday 14 April 2016

We got off to a late start: Schnitzel sneaked into the Privy just as I said Good Morning to Betty and Susan. Feeling extremely uncomfortable and yearning for a shower, I managed to turn my irritation into motivation to complete the first tough stretch of the day in a short time, although we did stop at the famous “Swag of the Blue Ridge Mountain” for a photo. Kelly’s Knob or Dismal Mountain as it is also known, was all it promised to be with a relentless elevation profile, requiring us to stop ever so often. We did stop for lunch at the top, but our sense of relief was of short duration: still quite a few ups and the fact that my water ran out more than a mile from the Gap didn’t help. Catching a lift to Hiawassee from Dick’s Creek after ‪15:00‬ in the afternoon, was a problem. Especially since we were 4 men and one woman. No matter how hard I tried and how optimistically I smiled, I kept on thinking if I could shave off 20 years it might have worked. Or maybe dark windows are just too convenient even if you own a pickup truck on which you could load a whole bunch of weary hikers without taking on too much of a risk. We walked half a mile down the road but reception was interrupted every time Kobus got to a point in the conversation where he wanted to negotiate a lift with the hotel owner. Eventually the owner of the Top of Georgia Hikers’ hostel gave us a lift to town since he had to go to the hardware store. He charged us $10. He told us how he hiked both the Appalachian and the PCT and how, in the face of strong competition, some friends bought the hostel for him. He wanted to restore hikers’ faith in the kindness of strangers and pay back some trail magic. Commenting on the increase in hikers he told us that the stats show that the annual registered hikers increased from 3600 and 3800 in the previous years to 5500 at the last count. He dropped us off right in front of the Holiday Inn and mentioned that Daniel’s Restaurant had an all you can eat buffet. The Holiday Inn provided a welcome reprieve for the next day and weary feet before we hit the trail again on Saturday the 16th.