Trail Magic, Showers & Survivor

 

Our third day on the trail was a challenge after a very exhausting day two. It was 80 degrees and sunny, with almost zero leaves on the trees. We took a break for lunch at Gooch Gap & after about a half an hour our friend from the first day, Marty, arrived. We were sure he was ahead of us on the trail, but at one point he and two other guys took a wrong turn down a steep 2 mile long trail that led directly to an Army Ranger training camp -- not good!!! After the steep climb back up the trail, he was too tired to push on and made camp at the base of Sassafrass mountain. We hiked with Marty pretty much the rest of the day and ended up at Woody Gap near Suches, GA. As we got closer to Woody Gap, we both began to run low on water and eventually ran out just before getting there. In our dehydrated states, we were dying to find the spring to fill up. To our dismay, it was a trickle of dirty water down a hillside. As we treated our half-and-half of dirt and water, two guys we had passed earlier showed up. One of them, Tyler (right), offered beers, water, oranges and a ride into Dahlonega -- he had parked his truck at the gap three days prior. Jeff & I were both pretty sunburnt despite lathering on the sunscreen, and Jeff was nursing some pretty good blisters, so we took them up on their offer and spent a night with some Bud Lights and our favorite, Survivor :0).

Showered, clothes washed and farmers tans in full effect, we are ready to hit the trail again in the morning. We mailed off 8lbs of gear we'd been carrying and will most likely get lighter packs once we get to Neels Gap. Being somewhat rookies to this thru-hiking thing, you don't really think about the difference a few pounds of pack, or a few ounces of soap add up to when you are carrying it on your back over mountains in the heat. Lessons learned, lol, and I am sure there will be more in the future! All that matters is that we are having a total blast and are meeting tons of cool people. It seems like everywhere we go everyone is interested to know what we are doing -- are we thru-hiking? where did we start? where are we from? Everyone has tips and tricks and stories of their own and it is great to be here to hear them. We even ran into our friend "Genuine Draft" here at the place we are staying. Small world.

Talk to you guys soon!!!

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HikeStrong 2010 - Jeff & Aly
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