We had a very eventful, and pretty good, weekend in Georgia this past weekend. Ben and I had two little AT sections we needed to knock out, at which point we would be poised to finish Georgia on our next hike. So we decided to spend the weekend down there and hike one section on Saturday and the other on Sunday. Ben's friend Rick (who has hiked a couple of sections with us in the past) has been wanting to get back on the trail with us, so he decided to join us. I booked a three-bedroom cabin because it was the only pet-friendly one available at the resort where we stayed last time (we had a good experience there and wanted to go back). I figured we'd have way too much room, but then Ben's friend and (now former) co-worker Mark decided to come with us so we could drop him off at Springer Mountain to begin his AT thru-hike Saturday morning.
Mark recently resigned from his job to do this thru-hike, and to say I'm jealous is an understatement. I mean, I really don't want to live on the trail for months, or even for days (which is why I'm hiking in mostly day-sized sections), but just the thought of being so free and having the opportunity to accomplish such a huge thing is amazing. Dropping him off and following his hike (and hopefully meeting up with him a few times along the way) is probably as close as I'm going to get to a thru-hike, so the whole thing was crazy exciting for me (and, you know, probably for Mark as well - ha!). Anyway, the timing worked out perfectly for Ben to offer him a ride to start his journey, and I'm so glad he took us up on it.
AND, we had the perfect amount of space in our cabin. Each of us had a bedroom and bathroom on a completely separate level of the cabin. Ben and I took the walk-out basement so we'd have a door to take Tigger directly outside (you probably know by now that he doesn't co-exist well with most people, so being able to keep him separated from Mark and Rick was nice). And our bedroom had the cutest little Tigger-sized bed in it!
The cabin also had an amazing back deck with beautiful mountain views and a grill, where Ben grilled us supper each night (Rick brought about 90 pounds of salmon and filet, and we did our best to eat all of it (we didn't even get close, unfortunately).
Saturday morning, we got up early to get Mark to Springer Mountain. The drive to Springer was probably about an hour out of our way because our "clean-up" hikes were almost at the top of Georgia, but it was totally worth it to be able to see him off. Even though I almost ran out of gas doing it. And when I say "almost," I mean, I'm pretty sure I did run out of gas and God powered me five more miles to a gas station anyway.
When we left our cabin, my car said I had 80 miles remaining on my tank of gas. Although the drive to Springer took about an hour due to mountainous roads, etc., it was only 24 miles, so I reasoned that I had plenty of gas to drive there and get back to our trailhead, and just get gas when we got done hiking (I really was trying to get to our trailhead before 9AM because I knew parking would be scarce after that point on a beautiful Saturday). When my "low fuel" warning went off at 55 miles left on my tank (it gives plenty of warning), Ben said, "Oh great," and I shushed him because I still had ALL KINDS of gas. Fifty-five miles, Ben. Ample gas. I know what I'm doing.
Only apparently I don't. Apparently crawling up an unpaved Forest Service Road at 15 MPH uses more gas than you'd think, and by the time we got to the parking area at Springer, my car said I had only 15 miles left on the tank. Gulp. While Mark was getting out of the car and getting ready to start his amazing adventure, we were getting ready to start an adventure of our own back down the mountain. We were all Googling (to the extent you can really Google in the middle of nowhere) to find the nearest gas station, and the consensus was that it was about 17 miles away. We were nervous and knew we were going to be cutting it very close, but we assured Mark we would be fine, gave him all the good wishes, and sent him on his way!
The nearest gas station actually was in Suches, Georgia, which was even further out of our way (it required us to go down the opposite side of the mountain from the one where we came up - and the one that was closer to our chosen trailhead for the morning). I headed down the mountain hoping for the best and thinking that surely car manufacturers build in some extra miles on the fuel warnings exactly for stupid people like me. We only needed a couple of extra miles; we'd probably be fine. Except my GPS is apparently possessed by the devil. At random points while driving down the road, she would say, "Turn left." But there was no road to the left. At some points, it was a sheer drop-off. At others, there may have been a bushwhacky foot trail, but certainly no road. And every time she told me to turn left and I ignored her, she "recalculated" and added about a mile to our distance to the gas station.
When my car dinged and told me to "Refuel Immediately" because I had ZERO miles left, the GPS still showed that we were five miles from the gas station, and we were still on a dirt/gravel Forest Service road. Luckily, we were going downhill for the most part, so I wasn't using much gas, but it was still really stressful, and I figured our hike for the day would end up being to the gas station and back to the car. We were all (including Mark, I later learned) praying that we would make it to the gas station, and that whole "Where two or three gather together" thing from Matthew was certainly applicable as we finally rolled into a backwoods Georgia gas station without so much as a sputter. Whew.
We finally made it to the Byron Reece trailhead at about 10:45. The parking lot was packed, but after circling once, we managed to find a spot to park. We headed up the Byron Reece Trail, which is a 0.7-mile climb to the AT. We then headed north and soon came to Neel Gap (or Neels Gap, depending which sign you're looking at), where there is a cool old stone building built by the CCC in the 30s that used to house the Walasi-Yi Interpretive Center (Walasi-Yi is Cherokee for "home of the great frog" - apparently Neel Gap was formerly known as "Frogtown Gap") but now houses Mountain Crossings outfitters.
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| The trail goes right through the building (see the white blaze?). |
This is kind of a legendary stop for AT thru-hikers. You hit it after a few days of hiking if you're going NoBo from Springer. Mark got there on his third day, I think - before I even got this blog written! But we met a guy there while we were there, and he was on the 7th full hiking day of his thru-hike, so Mark is making pretty good time! Going NoBo, Mountain Outfitters is a welcome respite after hiking up and over the beast that is Blood Mountain. But if you're coming SoBo from Maine, it means you're almost finished. There's a big tree outside where hikers who are finishing the trail throw their shoes in celebration, and there are hundreds of shoes hanging there. I bet Mountain Crossings sells a bunch of shoes!
We took a bathroom break at Neel Gap (because I had been in the car all morning without one, and I hate peeing in the woods, so I'll take a bathroom break just about anytime I find one on the trail) and then headed out for the rest of our hike. It was a pretty great day to be on the trail. It was a little cloudy, and it sprinkled rain on us a couple of times, but nothing too crazy. And the temperature was pretty perfect for climbing. There were lots of wildflowers along the trail.
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Mark down another color of trillium. I think they call this "toad trillium" or maybe "prairie trillium." I've seen both names.
We were walking a ridgeline for most of the day, so we had some pretty great views all day long. |
Then there were these amazing views from the top of Cowrock Mountain:
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| Smurf Hat Mountain is back center! |
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| Pay attention to this valley; it will appear from different angles later. |
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| Christmas card contender! |
After leaving Cowrock Mountain, we began to circle around the end of the valley seen in one of the pictures above and dip down to Tesnatee Gap.
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| Cowrock is over to the right now. |
Then from Tesnatee, we had a pretty strenuous 0.8-mile climb up to Hogpen Gap on the other side of the valley. The picture below is looking back at Cowrock Mountain. It's fun to look back at something that seems so far away and say, "Hey, we were just there!" Not to mention we dropped down quite and bit and then climbed back up since then.
We were all pretty worn out after the climb to Hogpen and were happy to see Rick's car where we had left it before heading to Springer first thing that morning. Unfortunately, however, after we all got settled in the car and pulled out of the parking lot to go pick up my car from our starting point, Rick discovered that his driver's side front tire was completely flat. We think it may have gotten punctured when getting back up on the pavement from the unpaved area where we parked. Or maybe some jerk stabbed it while it was parked. Who knows?
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| Tigger assesses the situation. |
Rick has AAA and called them, but it was going to be an hour or so before they got there, and Ben can't sit still that long, even after a long day of driving, stressing about running out of gas, and hiking, so he changed the tire himself and got us moving.
Unfortunately, the lug nuts didn't seat very well with the spare tire wheel and kept loosening up as we drove, so Rick would stop and tighten them every once in a while. Sunday morning, he decided to skip hiking and instead try to find some different lug nuts so he wouldn't have to stop every 20 minutes on his way back to Nashville that afternoon. So Ben and I were on our own for the second hike of the weekend. Rick was kind enough to follow us to our ending point to drop my car and then shuttle us back to our starting point before he left us.
This hike was from Dick's Creek Gap to Blue Ridge Gap. Blue Ridge Gap is "kind of" the last place to get off the trail in Georgia before you cross into North Carolina. I say "kind of" because the road that goes there is a Forest Service road that hasn't been maintained in years, and you really can only drive up there in a lifted truck or Jeep with huge tires (or, apparently, a dirtbike, as we saw some of those, too). So, a lot of people don't really consider this a place to get off the trail. I consulted with Ron, our usual shuttle driver for this area, and he advised me that there was a small pull-off at the bottom of the road where I could park, and we could walk down the road to the car after our hike (the extra distance was about a mile).
Honestly, I kind of dreaded hiking this section, because I had read all kinds of reports that it was one of the more difficult sections on the Georgia AT and that the climbs were just brutal. Maybe I just worked myself up too much, but both Ben and I agreed that it wasn't nearly as bad as we expected. Actually, I thought it was really enjoyable; and I think Ben enjoyed it, too.
Tigger even found a little water to play in first thing in the morning. You'd think he would be happy about that, but judging by his raging side-eye, I was cramping his style by taking pictures.
Can't see it? Here's a close-up:
This hike was another one in which we were ridge-running for most of the day, so there was no shortage of great views (although there will be fewer of them in a couple of weeks when there are more leaves on the trees).
In addition to the views, here's a cool thing: have you ever watched fern fronds unfurl? Have you ever tried to say "fern fronds unfurl"? I hadn't, either, until just now when I said it in my head. Anyway, I've seen these curly little things before but hadn't paid much attention to them, and then I found out that it's actually what turns into a fern leaf. Pretty cool, huh?
Part two of the weekend hike was pretty short, as the AT section itself was only about 5.7 miles, and then we added the mile back down to the car. We met a few more thru-hikers and leap-frogged with a couple of them all morning. They were hiking a lot faster than we were when they were hiking, but they stopped for a break about every mile. It became a running joke that we were the slow and steady tortoises that would win the race (except they were the ones carrying the heavy shells on their backs). They were taking a break at Blue Ridge Gap when we got there and turned down the road toward our car, so we said our goodbyes and wished them well. And I'm really glad I talked to Ron and knew not to try to drive up that road in my car. It was pretty terrible.
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| Nature has reclaimed the road into a lovely little creek. Tigger loved walking in it and was really sad when it eventually spilled off to the left. |
Even hiking the road, we got to see some pretty stuff, like this view:
And this pretty Wild Dogwood bloom that was hanging down at eye-level:
This weekend was not so great for driving, but it was pretty great as far as hiking went. And now, we have only about three more miles of the AT left at the top of Georgia; then we'll have another state behind us. I'm kind of sad about that, because I've really enjoyed our Georgia hiking trips, but I'm sure we'll be back.
360.9 down; 1829.1 to go.
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