Update: Beautiful Views & Thrown Shoes

OK — to pick up after the foggy hike over Blood Mountain…

George and Logan completed the AT together in 2009. Did we mention that they’re awesome? (Photo courtesy of George)

After ten miles of hiking in fog as thick as pea soup, it was a relief to arrive at Neels Gap and see our friends, Georgeanna and Logan, who own Mountain Crossings outfitter and hostel. This is the same Georgeanna (everyone calls her George) and Logan mentioned in our “Made possible by” section — they have been integral in helping us plan and execute this trek.

George is college friends with Katherine’s brother-in-law, and she immediately took us in like family. She fed us, dealt with our blisters, and introduced us to the rest of the crew. Pretty much everyone who works at Mountain Crossings has thru hiked the Appalachian Trail at least once, so they know their stuff [one of the employees — trail name ‘Squarl’ — is about to be a ‘Triple Crowner’ — meaning he will have thru hiked the AT, the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). Amazing].

George, Logan & the awesome crew at Mountain Crossings (minus Jason). You guys are real American heroes. (photo courtesy of George)

Their signature service is the ‘shakedown’ — where they rummage through a hiker’s belongings and extract unnecessary items/weight. On average, they are able to trim 12 pounds from a load! Fortunately, we didn’t need to be shaken down since we had their expert advice from the start. Thanks George, Logan, and the gang for the hospitality, the pizza, and for spending a significant amount of time lying prone on the floor sizing up Katherine’s foot arch 😉

The next day we hiked in the crisp mountain air along beautiful ridge lines with amazing views. We met many spring breakers (kudos for spending your break in the mountains at mother nature’s whim instead of a booze-filled beach), received fresh fruit from a trail angel, and saw the first signs of spring on the forest floor (click through the gallery below).

The signs of spring are slowly appearing in the woods

View from Cowrock Mtn.

Us after a nice lunch on Wolf Laurel Top — thanks spring breaker for takin’ the pic!

Some fun guys!

We camped by a creek that evening and were in our sleeping bags by 6:30pm to stay warm. With ample time until sundown, we finished off the brandy (thanks, Uncle George!) and made up stories about talking potatoes and panda escapades. All in all a good day.

The next day was a monster of a hike for us. We knocked out fourteen miles from Hogpen Gap to Unicoi Gap — making it there a day ahead of schedule! Highlights included more breathtaking views of North Georgia’s mountains, and Katherine accidentally flinging her shoe off of a boulder. Yep. That happened. Guess who had the pleasure of retrieving it?

What’s wrong with this picture?

Brandon valiantly retrieves Katherine’s lost shoe. Le sigh.

14 mile day?! that’s right!

Unfortunately, the fourteen miles did a number on Katherine’s already sore knee. Fortunately, we had been planning to stay with friends in Hiawassee, GA  — and they came to the rescue!

Beth and David welcomed us with open arms, food and margaritas!

The view from Beth and David’s house in Hiawasee, GA. Life is hard there…

Beth and David are Katherine’s family friends, and they graciously swooped us up from Unicoi Gap to spend the weekend at their lovely home on Lake Chatuge in Hiawassee. We were able to rest our weary, swollen feet and oh, did we feast! Over the weekend we ate ribs, steak, chicken, sausage, twice baked potatoes, pizza, salad, fruit, biscuits, and most notably — porkchops for breakfast! Not to mention the homemade margaritas.

Our break from the trail lined up well with March Madness, so we were able to watch lots of basketball (bummer Tar Heels… but way to go Hoos!). We also visited a local vineyard where we sampled Georgia wine and randomly ran into George enjoying her day off with a friend — it’s a small hiking world. It was the perfect weekend for rest, recuperation, and ribs. Thank you Beth and David for sharing your beautiful home with us and filling us to the gills with delicious food and energy for the hike ahead!

The hike from Unicoi Gap was a challenging two-summit day — first climbing 1000′ to the top of Rocky Mountain, then another 1,500′ climb over Tray Mountain.

View from the summit of Tray Mountain.

… annnnd the other view from the summit!

Fortunately, they were split up by the most amazing trail magic to date — thanks to Carla and Dave. Fueled with burgers, hotdogs, fresh fruit, spinach salad, and mini cupcakes, we made it to Tray Mtn. Shelter in high spirits. We met several other hikers there, including Copernicus (trail name given for spotting the first star after several overcast days), North Star (his friends dropped him off at Springer Mtn. with directions to “follow the north star”), Borrego (his hispanic coworkers thought his hair looked like sheep’s wool), Gramps (in his twenties, but has the knees of an old man), Gaucho (recently wandered around Argentina), and reunited with Walk In Tree — the deaf and peripherally blind hiker from our first day! Again, a small hiker world.

It was our first night actually sleeping in a shelter, and ’twas a good thing we did… the early morning hours brought an inch of snow! Very pretty and very cold.

Our view from the Tray Mountain shelter first thing in the morning.

Our humble abode atop Tray Mtn.

All snug as bugs in rugs. Thanks to the three loud snorers, we had no fear of becoming bear burritos 😉

We woke up and were like, “Snoooow! prettttyyy!” then we remembered we have to live and hike in it. And we were like, “Oh.”

Bear bags hangin’ in the snow.

‘Borrego’ retrieves his bear bag to make some breakfast.

Snow art

The trail meandering through the melting snow.

We spent the day hiking from one side of the mountain ridge line to the other. On the sunny side, the snow had melted, the wind was calm, and we actually had to remove clothes to avoid getting too hot. Then we would switch to the other side of the mountain, and it would immediately change from spring to winter — high winds greeted us with snow in our faces, and we would be grateful for an uphill climb to keep our blood pumping. Needless to say, it was a wild day to be in the woods. We made a few videos to give you a sense of what it was like, but they really just give you sense of our nerdiness:

And we found a bench by a creek. Quaint:

A tiny bench in the woods!

Tall man on a tiny bench in the woods!

Katherine’s knee was still acting up pretty badly (limping on every downhill), so to prevent risk of further injury, we got a shuttle from Dicks Creek Gap back into Hiawassee where Katherine’s mom met us.

Which brings us to now. We are back at Katherine’s parents’ house in Cleveland, TN giving Katherine’s knee plenty of time to heal. We’re planning to take a week off, with much rest, ice, elevation, and light exercise thrown in the mix. Despite our slightly sputtering start, we’ve conquered seventy miles of the trail in eight days of hiking, and we’re on the cusp of entering North Carolina. So stay tuned, because we’re coming back harder, better, faster, stronger.