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.