On the fourth day out here, we experienced very cold rain that downpour nearly all day. About 30 of us creamed into a tiny lean-to style shelter, and the rain fell sideways, still managing to soak a lot of us inside. One gentleman with diabetes had a very scary moment, but our little community contributed sugar and blankets to warm him up and he ended up okay. None of us felt like we could get warm and everything managed to get wet. Setting up our rain fly in the downpour was an interesting experience!

Before getting to the shelter, Riley and I decided to hike the 5 miles there without eating a single bite of food and we were low on water because we stealth camped the previous night. When we finally arrived, I was so cold and exhausted that I could barely open a granola bar with my hands shaking. I decided it would be a brilliant idea to cook my soup on the picnic table in the shelter, where other people were doing the same. When my beans weren't fully cooked from the boiling water, I naively turned my jet boil back on and it almost instantly began to boil over. In my haste to turn off the flame, I broke off the ignitor and I couldn't twist it off and had to blow it out. A gentleman across from me helped and quickly twisted off the fuel canister so that it wasn't leaking. Luckily he was also an engineer and was able to fix my ignitor. So, now I have my trail name : Sparky, because I'm a fire hazard.

The soup was everywhere and made a huge mess to clean up that resembled vomit. I cleaned it all up as best I could with the wet wipes that were available and left the soupy mess in my stove to clean up later after the rain. With it in the bear box, I didn't have the ability to cook dinner later, but somebody let me boil water with their stove so that I was able to get extra calories to stay warm for the night. The hiking community is truly humanity at its best, lending helping hands where needed because we're all in this together. I also learned that the bear box lids will fall on your head if you don't hold onto them.

Around 4:30 pm, the rain finally let up and those of us who stayed at camp had some respite. Many others left for town, particularly those whose gear was soaked and ran a real risk of hypothermia. A fog settled in that looked like something straight out of a Stephen King novel. It ended up only sprinkling throughout the night and I was surprisingly the warmest I've been yet.

We took our first Nero (thru hiker term for a nearly zero, or no mileage day). We hiked the 5 miles to Woody Gap and got a shuttle to Dahlonega, where we got a room at the Quality Inn so that we could dry out our gear and clean up. I took off the leuko tape from my toes that I'd been using to prevent blisters. However, my pinky toe had already formed a blister and the tape ripped off all the healing skin with it and left a way worse mess than it had been. I was luckily able to soak and clean it right away, but it was certainly not an ideal location for a blister when we walk miles every single day.

We were so excited just to sleep in a normal bed and found ourselves gleefully skipping down the street to the gas station in the rain when we first arrived, still filthy as can be. We got subway and I ate an entire foot long and a half. We got to call our partners and parents and that was also very nice. We spent so long cleaning up and talking to family that we almost missed our opportunity for more town food and barely was able to get a pizza delivered last minute late at night. Pizza has never tasted so good!

We woke up early for complimentary breakfast, even though everything in us made us want to sleep in. I walked 2 miles round trip just to get to a dollar general and get some neosporin and extra bandages for my toe. We then hurried to pack everything up and get out by the check out time. It took awhile for us to find a shuttle that would take us the 12 miles back to the trail.

We spent the day at a small park and had really good pub food for lunch. We started to plot for the upcoming section : an 11 mile stretch up and back down the tallest mountain in Georgia ~4400+ ft. This section requires a bear canister to camp, so everybody tries to push through without camping there. We had snow and rain threatening us and we made the decision that it would be better to hike the whole thing at night than during the day with the bad weather and my toe blister. We were able to make our way back to trail and start hiking by about 5 pm. We watched the sunset way up on a mountain with a beautiful view and continued on in the dark for the first time, planning to camp in once we were in the clear of the bear canister section.

Once we made it to the top, we could see the city lights off in the distance. As we started to decline, we found that it was very steep rock scrambles that would have been difficult to navigate even in the daylight. We slowly made our way down the mountain, discovering that there were no trees that would allow us to hang our hammocks or properly bear hang our food. We were forced through the deepest mud we've encountered yet and we both got soaked feet.

At one point, near a small cave outcropping we passed by, I thought we woke a cowboy camper so I apologized as we went past. Later, I realized that it was way too cold for anyone to be sleeping out under the stars with no rain/wind protection and there was not a single soul on this side of the mountain. It dawned on me that the black shape was not a sleeping bag and the reflective thing my Headlamp caught was not a piece of equipment, but more likely an eyeball of a black bear. I had apologized to a bear.

When we made it almost all the way down the mountain, we were exhausted and found some trees we thought we could post up on until morning. We set up our rain fly and went back across the trail to hang our food and found a very fresh pile of bear poop right there that we're pretty certain had not been the before. So, we quickly packed up the rain fly and took off back down the mountain, banging our trekking poles and chanting loudly to alert bears along the way. We finally made it to Neels Gap, where there is an outfitter and some street lights alongside a highway. We posted up on some picnic tables and changed into our dry clothes around 2 am. I couldn't get warm at all and laid shivering until dawn. I was awake for the equivalent of about 30+ hours. What an experience!

When the sun rose, we were happy to see our friend John approach and we hung out on the picnic tables until the outfitter opened up. I spent way too much money on warmer gear and dry sacks. We were exhausted Popsicles and chose to opt for one more night in town so I could tend to my blister again and let it air out. We had McDonald's and Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner. We slept for many hours and definitely needed it! We were happy to get out of the rain, hail, and snow for the night!