Day 7

Thank god I decided against cowboy camping last night. We camped at Tray Miuntain shelter and we should’ve known it was going to be windy. From inside my tarp, the gusts of wind sounded like waves crashing on a beach. The flapping of everyone’s tents was like a round of applause at each gust. The wind was so bad it was ripping my tent stakes out of the ground.

I slept like shit. Maybe 4-5 hours of sleep at most. I had to continuously hold down my tarp during the huge gusts of wind all while dirt and leaves are being blown in my face. This is not the weather I expected when researching this trail. The morning hike wasn’t bad though. Even though it’s chilly you’re still sweating because of the humidity.

We only have to do 11 miles today to get into Dick’s Gap so that we can hitch into Hiawasee Georgia. We all packed up and headed out of camp around 7:30. Two Toned, Anvil, and I get to a water source around 10:30 and decide to wait for Max so that we can all walk the last 3.5 miles together into town. Over and hour goes by and we still haven’t seen Max. I start to get a little worried because he’s never too far behind so I started asking other hikers coming down Kelly’s Knob if they’ve seen him. Nobody has. A little more panick sets in because I’m suppose to make sure nothing happens to my little brother and mom would beat my ass if anything did. Another hour goes by and FINALLY Max comes tromping down the hill. My first instinct is anger because what the hell could possible take him so long if nothing was wrong. Turns out he made a right out of camp instead of a left and ended up going a mile or two in the wrong direction. The teasing ensues and all of forgiven.

We reach Dick’s Gap not long after and only had to wait for about 10 minutes before a older guy named Tom pulls over and greets us with a cat sitting in his lap. “get in the back!” He says and we all hop in the back of his pickup and ride into Hiawasee wind blowing in our faces and the stench of hikers leaving a trail behind us.

All the hostels are full so I called the Budget Inn to get us all a room for the night so that our feet can rest and resupply. Tom drops us off there and when I walk up to the front desk the motel manager in his southern accent says “I hope y’all have reservations!”. I replied “Of course we do! My name is Matt Poole”. He can’t find anything. Turn out I made reservations at another location two towns over. FML. We call around and everything is booked. Luckily there’s a Hokiday Inn at the other end of town that’ll take us. It’s about twice as much as we planned on spending but we are left with little choice.

We grab food at a southern Buffett which was lack luster to say the least but at least we are full. Everyone gets a shower and the hiker chores start. Laundry, resupply, visit the gear shop to pick up some odds and ends, and of course drink a couple cold beers.

We hit one of the three holy grail hitch’s last night. They say the hardest ones to get are ones from a motorcycle, an RV, and a cop. Low and behold we were trying to hitch from the bar back to our hotel room and a sheriff in a marked SUV flipped around and picked us up! He was the nicest guy too. Apparently he use to work on AT as a ridge runner and I’m not sure of his real name but he introduced himself to us as “BoneSaw”. All the other hikers were staring in bewilderment as they saw us role up in the back of the sheriff’s car. Kind of felt like a celebrity.

Anyways, we stayed up till about midnight chatting away in the hotel lobby finishing off the last of our beers. I love this hiking stuff.