Georgia with the Dames (Sun)

This morning I walked over to the campfire ring and saw that someone has started a nice morning fire AND had gone and gotten our food from the bear bags. (It's looking like it's going to be a great day!) I went back to my hammock and packed up everything so that I could leave with one of the first groups. 15 minutes later I enjoyed the morning fire again, boiled some water for my oatmeal, and listened to all the chatter going on. SHOE, in another one of her food experiments, made some breakfast oatmeal that didn't quite work out. It looked like some congealed orange glop. HA! That girl makes me laugh! I caught Maggie eating a breakfast S'more and had to call her out. You see, last night she had her first, and what she claimed was her last S'more. Not b/c she didn't like it, but that it was just too rich tasting. Well, it seems it wasn't too rich this morning. HA! We both had a laugh and I'm glad she got to indulge in a camping tradition. :)

After the traildame morning meeting about today's hike and car pooling etc... Kelly and I were the first ones on the trail. We only had 5.4 miles to do but had a big climb that morning, a 954 foot ascent in a mile. We started around 8:45am and took out time. We climbed and climbed, and climbed. I thought it would never end! Then all of the sudden Kelly turned around and said, "you see what I see." I looked up, past her and saw the blue sky peeking over the ridge. I said, "if that's what I think it is, we are high fiving when we get up there." And that's just what we did! We were FINALLY at the top of Kelly's knob. I dropped my pack and as usual, as soon as I saw the view, I forgot about the climb. It was spectacular. Kelly was pointing out a lake and told me that you could see NC and SC from our GA mountain top. I thought it was the coolest thing. We took lots of photos and a quick water break b/c it was just the first mile of the day, we knew we still had a while to go. We climbed down into Deep gap and decided to by pass the shelter and take a nice break at the bottom before the next big climb. Well, we're chillin', when all of the sudden this old dude in JEANS comes running down the trail. I mean running like he's trying to get away from the cops running. He doesn't say anything to us. OK... strange. And why would someone be out in the middle of nowhere, running in jeans? Everyone knows you don't wear cotton on the trail right? ha! I just found it weird.

Well, we spent the next 2 miles climbing up and down 4 mountains. I counted each climb up. DAMN! I can honestly understand why lots of thru-hikers complain about all the PUDS (pointless ups and downs) in Georgia. My goodness, I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride, just up, down, up, down, no view, up, down, up, down. By then, we were getting pretty fatigued from all the ups and downs, that we decided to take a lunch break. I knew from looking at Kelly's map that after the fourth climb, the rest of the trail should of been all down hill.

Well guess what? The map was wrong. Every time Kelly and I would make it to a gap, we would start climbing again, it got to be a cruel joke that we both laughed at and sort of cried at. THANK GOODNESS I had another person to share the insanity with. Haha! By the way, Kelly was a great hiker, she doesn't give herself enough credit. She set the pace and led the entire way. All the while telling me she's a slow hiker. Don't believe it! She's a strong hiker and I'd hiker with her again any time. So to get our minds off the climbs, we started thinking about cold icy diet cokes and that helped a little. This was a tough day for me. I hadn't expected all those extra climbs and coupled with the fact that I hadn't hiked since early October just made it tough.

We finally push up the last little hill and see the Dicks Creek Gap road up ahead. YEAH! we made it. and it was only 1pm! We hop in Kelly's car and head into Hiawassee for a diet coke! I was so excited to roll into Haiwassee, only because I've read about this little town so many times on trailjournals. I tell Kelly how excited I am to finally check out Haiwassee and then she points out the famous Blueberry Patch Hostel! It looked just like I would imagine it to look like. A blue little hostel. We finally found a little store and head right over to the soda fridges. I pull out a diet coke then spot one of those huge 1 liter diet coke bottles. So I do the right thing and put back my little coke bottle and exchange it for the 1 liter jug. haha! Yea, I got greedy, but that cold coke was sooooooo good. We got up to pay and notice slices of pizza for sale, so my greedy self grabbed one of those too :) I paid the clerk and tell her this place is like a little oasis. She smiles and I wonder if she gets that alot. I mean, it is a trail town. We decided to wait to eat our slice back at the trail head picnic tables, but we took big swigs from our liters of diet coke all the way back. hahha! As we get back to Dicks Creek Gap to wait for Joan and Maggie, we spot Sunny sitting in her car. We invite her to join us at the picnic table.

Sunny used to be a serious hiker/climber/outdoors woman til she got into a really bad car wreck. She still hikes, but not as much distance as she used to do. She and a couple of hikers took the bail out, 1 mile trail back to the car this morning. Seems as if a couple of the girls decided not to finish the hike today. So Sunny went with them to help out carry gear and car pool. Then she came over to the trail head at the end of our section hike to pick up the rest us that finished. As we were talking, I find out that Sunny is really into ultralight backpacking and start to pick her brain for some gear recommendations. She asks if I want to SEE any of her gear and I excitedly tell her "YEAH!". She comes back with a huge duffel bag full of gear. I checked out her Patagucci (Patagonia) down jacket that weighs almost nothing. I check out her snow peak stove set that made me double think my Jetboil, and you know I love my Jetboil. But the snow peak was so small, compact, and light. I picked up her western mountaineering 20 degree down bag and almost ran off with it. That bag is soooo light I couldn't believe it. Then she showed me my next gear purchase! hahaa! Her Granite Gear Vapor Ki backpack. Man that pack was sweet. She let me try it on and I loved where all the straps fell. I've been wanting to get a lighter weight pack, but still wanted one with an internal frame. This one is perfect. I love the outside pockets that were made out of stretchy wetsuit material, I loved the cushioning on the hip and shoulder straps. It just looked and felt great on. I'm going to be saving up my pennies for this purchase!

After ohhing and ahhing over all of Sunny's gear, Joan and Maggie finally show up. We load up into Kelly's car and head back out to the cabins. I say my goodbyes to everyone and at 3:30pm, I'm pulling out of Helen GA and headed home. Another wonderful trip with the Trail dames. The weather was perfect, the views were great, the company was wonderful, and even though the trail kicked my butt, I got to be outdoors. I couldn't of asked for a better weekend. Til next time... GET OUTDOORS!!!