May 1st: Leaving Georgia

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Dicks Creek Gap, GA. to Muskrat Creek Shelter, NC

Made 11.6 miles today and walked north out of GA into NC at 2:20PM. We had a great night staying at "Cloud 9". I was up early and working on our blog. I did all the walking day entries on the hostel computer to save Matt time. Working, going after his MBA, raising his son, taking care of his wife who is expecting in Aug. I thought if I had the time why not. Now it is back to the pocketmail.
CC was up by 7AM and we had our fresh fruit breakfast. One of the travel light, go real fast guys was off to the trail by 7:30. We looked at the map some last night before sticking it in our return mail box. The walk was mostly up hill, so we were in no real hurry to leave the hostel.
Fran drove us up to the trail and off we went by 9:15AM. The gap sits at 2,660', 4/10s of a mile later we topped "Little Bald Knob" @ 3,440'. Down into Cowart Gap, 2,925' and up "Buzzard Knob, 3,760' 1.2 miles after the gap. Then down again into Bull Gap, 3,550' where we stopped for our chow break at about 11:45AM. While sitting there, a group of local high school honor students and some teachers on a day hike stopped for a rest. After about 30 minutes we made our final push for the border. There were mostly PUDS (Pointless Up & Downs), but 4.3 miles later we crossed into NC near Bly Gap @ 2:20PM.
The state line sits @ 3,820', they welcome you by having the trail go up almost a 45 degree incline for the next mile it seemed. In three miles we had climbed up to 4,600' by the time we reached the Muskrat Creek Shelter.
Our packs have six days of food to get us to Bryson City, NC, our next town stop. They felt like someone had loaded a bunch of stones in them. Temps today hovered around the high 70s with some wind. We drank loads of water as we walked.
About a mile short of our shelter we passed three southbound women section hikers, again they were a bit larger than you might expect to see walking with a pack. We have a tough enough time doing this the way we are, but we give them credit for getting out and working it off. We have made almost 80 miles in the first seven days of walking, a great start. Leaving GA was also a boost to our spirits, always nice to complete one of those.
We pulled into the shelter at 5PM, 11.6 miles in 7 hours 45 minutes was real good for full packs and the elevations we climbed. No one here but us. Took care of the water re-supply task then set about making supper. Tonight it was potato slices, peas, bell peppers, celery, green beans, chicken and some garlic instant potatoes mixed in with a white cheese sauce. This is all cooked in our one pot at one time. It took about 20 minutes including the "let it sit and cool off time." To save weight we have no bowls, it is just put that cook pot between us and eat! Tonight we put it away in short time. No threat of bad weather tonight, but we put our tent up inside the shelter for the flat surface
and wind blockage. 7:45PM sitting here on a bench tapping away at these tiny keys. CC is in the tent reading (she tore a bunch of pages out of a book because she knew that was all she would read and to save weight) staying away from the few black biting bugs flying around here. The sun is a silver slit in a broken, overcast buttermilk colored sky. A lone bird is giving intermittent single note calls as night starts to descend over the trail and its pods of hikers moving up and down its length looking for the night’s shelter.

Patrick, Deborah Mooney aka OD & CC
All Who Wander Are Not Lost

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