Day 12: Sassafras Gap to Dicks Creek Gap

Hi folks! I type this from the comfort of my room at the Holiday Inn Express in Hiawassee, GA. I arrived here via an impromptu shuttle ride, courtesy of “Tater,” along with a few other hikers at about 3:00pm.

I was up and out of Sassafras Gap by about 10:30am. I knew I had about 6 miles to hike for the day, which takes me about 4 hours to hike. I wasn’t in any great rush this morning. I was having more fun socializing with the hikers that were actually leaving at a respectable hour. I had my morning coffee while others were packing or eating breakfast. Oh! A group of us also caught pictures of the sunrise – we had a great view of the event to the east of our campsite. You’ll have to wait for the photo/video post to see those.

So, right out of the gate on the trail, I was faced with a 1000 foot climb over 1 mile. It doesn’t sound like a lot, I’ve done several of these climbs already – but something was different about this one. Even though the A.T. Guide’s profile shows a steady climb, it was anything but steady. There would be a 100 yards of really steep trail followed by a just steep section of trail. It was really an exhausting climb and I was glad I was doing it in the morning – when I was fresh.

In fact, that very point made me more comfortable with last night’s decision to not press on and try to catch Voyager. There is just no way I’d have made that climb and even remotely enjoyed it. Oh, I would’ve made it somewhere – probably passed out on the side of an incline with no hope of pitching my tent.

At the top of this climb was a feature called “Kelly Knob.” Being my namesake, it seems somewhat sadistically appropriate I guess. What was not sadistic was that a day hiker named “Tater” was right at the summit. He had his dog, who was napping, and a backpack. The backpack contained… cans of Pepsi!!! Already at the top was the 83 year old dude I mentioned, Tom. We started calling him Trekking Tom. He was chatting with Tater over a can of Pepsi when I arrived and was immediately offered my own Pepsi. 🙂

I never took my pack off during this break because I promised myself one break at the halfway point of the day. Having not arrived at that milestone, I quickly finished the Pepsi, thanked Tater and then hiked on down. Oh, while at Kelly Knob, another hiker showed up who was hiking… BAREFOOT!!! Is that insane, or what??? The dude said he was slowly building calluses, and then the insanity started to make sense. He was essentially building his own custom form-fitting hiking shoes. We call them calluses, but functionally, they will perform the same purpose as hiking shoes. Pretty amazing, but it’s not in my destiny… I’ll trust my bad-ass Salomon XA-3D Ultra 2 Trail Runners instead.

Now headed down Kelly Knob, it was still another 1.5 miles to where Voyager was headed. I felt even better about last night’s decision to stop early. Like I said, I’d have made it somewhere, but at a cost measured in multiple degrees of unpleasantness.

With nearly 3 miles under my belt, the halfway point for the day was near. I arrived at Deep Gap to find members of Team Turtle taking a break. Gummy Bear and Shrek, of Team Turtle, were present. Shrek was just heading off into the woods to… well, do what one goes into the woods to do.

While chatting with Gummy Bear, I asked her where Voodoo was, their third member. She told me that he had to be evacuated this very morning! Apparently, he suffered a torn tendon the previous day while hiking down to Sassafras Gap. When it became clear his thru hike was over, they were able to phone “Sir-Packs-A-Lot” – a recent A.T. legend. They were able to limp Voodoo down to Addis Gap where Sir-Packs-A-Lot met them and drove Voodoo directly to a doctor.

It’s one thing to leave the trail for psychological reasons. It sucks, but it does happen. People come out to thru hike and really don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. When they make that realization, they leave voluntarily. Even by Neel Gap, somewhere between 20% and 33% leave the trail. But to be forced off the trail due to injury – the suckage factor is a thousand fold, maybe more. Shrek and Gummy bear said they’d be in touch with Voodoo and that if he recovers, he’s welcome to re-join them wherever they may be on the trail.

Shortly after hearing the sad news, Trekking Tom arrived to take a break. Minutes later, a group arrived from Deep Gap Shelter to ask if we were thru hikers. They identified themselves as belonging to hikingsouth.com – they head out on day hikes for the sole purpose of meeting other hikers. They actually got a decent photo of me, Gummy Bear, Shrek and Avatar. You can see the photos on their weekly report right here: http://hikingsouth.com/2015hikes/2015hike10.html Go check it out!!!

After the break, it was time to move on. The remaining 3 miles were mostly a steep decent down into Dicks Creek Gap – where route US 76 crosses the Appalachian Trail. I wanted to get there as soon as possible. I was ready for my town stay, and I already had reservations at the Holiday Inn Express. I knew of a restaurant called Daniel’s Steak House. I was dreaming of steak, a baked potato with all the fixings and a salad. It’s amazing what a food dream can do to your motivation. I was flying down that mountain!

Eventually, I caught up with Tater – he had hiked past us while taking our break back at Deep Gap. He himself had caught up with Denny and Becky, so the four of us ended up hiking the rest of the way to Dicks Creek Gap more-or-less together. Denny and Becky are an older couple hiking the A.T. and have no trail names yet.

As we approached the parking area at Dicks Creek Gap, I stayed back to take photos. When I finally made it to the parking area, Tater had already offered Denny and Becky a ride into Hiawassee. They were boarding his truck that already had two other hikers – Crusoe and Meadow, whom I’d camped with at Sassafras Gap. I guess maybe I looked like I’d missed out on something, with regard to the ride – because Tater quickly offered to take me into town too!

Only one caveat: The back of his pickup was already full, but two of the occupants would be dropped off only a half mile down the road at the Top of Georgia Hostel. So, by leaving the tailgate open I was able to find space sitting right on the tailgate with legs dangling over the edge as we drove on!!! 🙂

It was a fun ride – having never ridden like that before. It was actually exhilarating! I simply had to take video of the event. I asked Crusoe and Meadow if they minded if I shot “one of my goofy videos.” They had no objection, so the video was taken. Let’s just say that a little unplanned excitement happened during the video shoot. I’ll leave the details for the video itself in the next post. 🙂

After those two were dropped off, we closed up the tailgate and I was now securely seated in the back. The 11 mile drive to Hiawassee afforded some beautiful scenery which I tried to capture while riding. I’ll be posting all those photos too – you’ll just have to wait for them!

Tater dropped Denny, Becky and myself off at the Holiday Inn Express at about 3:00pm. I had reservations already, but Denny and Becky did not. Tater was nice enough to wait around to make sure they could get a room before he left.

I had not planned on a zero day in Hiawassee, but when I checked in I changed my mind. I asked the clerk to extend my stay by 1 night, and they were able to do so. After I got checked in, I emptied my backpack for a trip to the grocery store. I figured using my pack to carry groceries back would be easier than carrying plastic bags.

On my way out, I ran into… Voyager! She’d arrived much earlier in the day and had been running town errands for a couple hours. I told her the tale of how I couldn’t hike the extra 3 miles last night and stayed at Sassafras Gap instead. She said the last three miles of her hike were absolute hell. We both planned on getting dinner at Daniels, so we decided to meet up at 7pm in the lobby and head over.

On the way out to dinner, we ran into Parks – another guy I was camped with at Sassafras Gap. We chatted with him for a few minutes and invited him to Daniels – but he’d already had delivery dinner and wasn’t hungry. We traded stories of our last few days, and I learned a piece of info I’d forgotten. In my Day 11 post, there was trail magic at Trey Gap. The guys name was “Grits” and was a former thru hiker.

At dinner with Voyager, I told her that I’d mentioned her in yesterday’s blog post. I told her that I wrote, “Well, Voyager is on her own.” She laughed and said to make sure I at least spelled it right. So, for the record the correct spelling is Voyageur. I’m not going to bother changing all the occurrences in this blog, as I’m too lazy to do that.

For my meal, I ended up having exactly what I’d planned on: Steak, Baked Potato with all the fixings and a Salad swimming in Italian Dressing. To say it tasted great would be a huge understatement. One remark about the service – the folks there weren’t exactly unfriendly or rude, but they weren’t exactly friendly either. I mean, the waitress was attentive and did everything a waitress should do. But totally absent was that “friendly zeal” that you commonly get while dinning. This place was more of an “all business” type of atmosphere – I guess.

After dinner, I came back to my room all prepared to type this blog post and start unpacking gear. All I needed was to just “lay down for a few minutes” to let dinner settle. Phhhh. Yeah, right. Sure. I ended up passing out and was not up permanently until the next morning.

So, up next will be a post for my Zero Day that will include photos and videos of Day 8-12.

wandering on…

Kelly