Day 19: Triple Zero and Pictures and Video

Ok, yes – a triple zero is excessive. Maybe that’s an understatement. But hey, it’s for good reason! I am finally completely caught up with this thing, it’s now actually March 31st as I write this. Tomorrow morning I return to the A.T. via a shuttle at 10am which, as previously stated, will take me all the way back to the A.T. at Deep Gap. I will have 3 miles to backtrack to the Chunky Gal Trail, which puts me back where I left and back on track to continue this journey. And trust me; I am ready to return to the trail. Before I leave, I wanted to post pictures and videos from the last three trail days, Day 14 thru 16.

But before I do that, here is a short recap of today…

Jim and I had a short coffee and breakfast this morning while chatting with the hotel manager, Rick. Jim still looked pretty wiped out from his two days of driving, so I suggested that maybe he could just let me borrow his car for my outings. He said that was actually a great idea, and handed his keys over! Woohoo! 🙂

So, with key in possession, I headed back upstairs to take a shower and make a list. Items I needed to take care of included laundry, obtaining lunches and snacks for 6 days of hiking and visiting a local outfitter for 2 additional dinners and shuttling information. In particular, the shuttle needed to be able to drive me up the forest service road.

Doing laundry was pretty uneventful. I chatted with the proprietor, who had many questions about my hike. She was curious, so I showed her some of the photos I’ve taken so far. While waiting for laundry, I went to the Ingles next door to shop. For this leg of the trip, I’m ditching my “snacks for lunch” routine and am attempting a dedicated lunch. I have tortillas with pepperoni and cheese to fill them with. For snacks, I’ve ditched my beef jerky which I’m sick of and have replaced that with pickled sausages. I have also added peanut butter into the snack mix. I really need to increase my calorie intake, so lets hope this works better.

With laundry and grocery shopping done, I returned to the hotel to find Jim waiting. He decided to accompany me to the outfitter and to also have lunch together while out. So we drove to the outfitter where I bought two additional dinner meals and got hold of a phone number of someone who shuttles to remote places. Remote places, like the end of a forest service road! 🙂 We then had lunch at a diner style grill restaurant. I had a pizza-style burger with waffle fries. Being that it was nearly 5pm, I decided this would be lunch and dinner and that I’d just have a microwave dinner as a late night snack.

We returned to the Comfort Inn, had a coffee and chatted with Debbie for a bit. After a while, I retired to my room to finish catching up my blog and to start resorting my gear – preparing for tomorrow’s return to trail.

So finally, here are photos and video from Day 14-16.

Day 14

This is the day I returned to the trail from Hiawasse, GA. I hiked from Dicks Creek Gap to Bly Gap – crossing the GA/NC border.

The driver of the shuttle I took was having hikers sign the roof of his van. So here’s my signature!

 

 

Now at Dicks Creek Gap, I had to do a little repacking to decrease my pack volume. While here, I ran into Whistler and White Rabbit (formerly “T”). Here are some photos of the parking area at Dicks Creek Gap.

There was some funky looking try near to top of a crest.

 

 

At Cowart Gap, I took a short hydration break and took photos.

A little further on, here’s a video I took looking at a ridge in the distance, which I tentatively identified as being the ridge I’d be hiking along as I crossed the state line.

And a little further along, another video:

And here are a bunch of stills from the same vantage point as the above video.

 

 

 

 

I finally took a proper break around 3:00pm at Plum Orchard Gap.

I decided to hike over to the shelter during my break. Here are some photos of the side trip.

 

After break was over, here are some photos a couple hours later. It was during this time I started hitting that mental low that persisted for days. As such, I wasn’t feeling like many pictures and video.

About an hour further…

And finally I arrived at the GA/NC state line crossing. Here’s the obligatory photo of the sign itself, a photo of a pooped out me, and one of me with the sign where I managed a forced smile.

 

Shortly after, I made it to Bly Gap where I setup camp. No more pictures for this day.

 

Day 15

This day was the 2nd low for me where I hiked from Bly Gap to Muskrat Shelter. I had a tough time even getting up and moving. Finally by 4:30pm I was ready to hike for a short day. Once again, due to a low day for me, photos and videos were kind of forced. I just wasn’t feeling it. Here is a photo at Bly Gap of the oak tree.

Some time later, I had to take a photo of this. I was a Sassafras Gap. Recall I had already been at a Sassafras Gap earlier in the trip. Turns out there are several features which have the same name as other features.

 

A few minutes past Sassafras Gap, I liked the scenery so I shot a video. There is no narration here since I didn’t feel like talking.

And here are some photos from the vantage point of that video. If you look closely, you can see a lake in the distance.

Now approaching the Muskrat Shelter site, here’s some photos of the creek I had to cross over.

 

And here are a couple shots of the snow covered ground as darkness was falling.

No more pictures from today!

Day 16

And finally we’re at the day where I bailed out. I hiked from Muskrat Shelter to the blue blazed Chunky Gal Trail to leave the A.T. and head to Franklin.

Here in the early morning are some photos of the camp area snowed in. I should’ve taken a photo of my tent before de-snowing it.

Despite the beautiful weather during the bail out hike of the blue blaze bozos, I took no photos. Again, it was a mental thing. I’ve got to get over this and take photos even when I don’t feel like it. I’ll get there. This whole thing is a learning experience.

So here is the physical manifestation of my manifesto I wrote at the bar that night. I have this in my pack and I will look at it anytime I think of leaving the trail. Who knows, it might get friends in the future. LOL

A couple other photos of the bar area.

 

And those are all the photos from this truncated leg of my trip.

I am seriously ready to be back on the trail. More to follow…

 

Wandering on…

Kelly