Mar 8

DAY #6
START LOCATION: Low Gap Shelter
FINISH LOCATION: Blue Mountain Shelter
TODAY'S MILEAGE: 7.2
TRIP MILEAGE: 48.7
MILES TO GO: 2,130.4
The late night shelter chit chat at "The Low" last night was a riot.
It centered around how to handle Research's girlfriend's strict dad
who doesn't think he's good enough for his daughter. What's priceless
is that Research, who's 18, just earned his Eagle scout honors. The
dad hates him and he's literally an eagle scout. Anyway, great
conversations.
Slept pretty well. The shelter was near a soft babbling spring. It was
just above freezing so the wee hour pee wasn't that painful. We knew
today would be light mileage and the weather would be nice, so we took
our time breaking camp. Lots of laughs and goofing around. We left as
a pack... Doc, Research, Slo-Mo, Swiftie, Phinneas (formerly Mikey No
Pants) and I. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was in the
sixties by midday and the terrain was soft packed dirt and just
fantastic on the feet.
We took two nice breaks today. One by a spring where I ate lunch and
another on a sunny saddle. Slo mo was on the phone because he had some
military release papers he had to get signed (much earlier than
expected in St. Louis) and needed an out at upcoming Unicoi Gap. A
sectioner passed and mentioned he had a shuttle to the hostel from
Unicoi, so Slo Mo left us and moved forward with him. It was a bummer
to lose Slo Mo. Pretty cool guy. He said he'd be back from MO in a week.
Our extended lunch break was over an hour long, but it was so nice in
the sun... Phinneas was getting sunburned in his lunchbreak hammock.
We had 2.2 miles to go to Blue Mtn so we decided 2pm was getting late.
Good thing we left when we did, the terrain went to crap again...
steep, slushy and slow going. Plus, the shelter spring was running
like a trickle.
Anyway, we ran into some cool SoBo spring break sectioners at Blue mtn
and were definitely entertained by Swiftie's storytelling and our
group's general ragging on some of the other goofy hikers we'd met.
The shelter is nice too... Awesome overlook that I'll snap some
pictures of. I'd like to be up early as it will have a good sunrise
over it. Swiftie, Research and I are going shelter to shelter now til
Hiawassee. Phinneas and Doc are trying to nail Hiawassee in a day to
avoid the rain coming tomorrow night that will be lasting for days.
This will be a learning experience on how well I can keep gear and
myself dry.
-N8dog