Mileage: Mile marker 15.8 to 24.3
Starting Spot: Gooch Mountain Shelter, Georgia
Ending Spot: Lance Creek Campsite, Georgia
Slept in: Cowgirl camped under the stars next to a river (aka no tent but the night sky)
Weather: Sunny and warm
My Trail Family and I are getting really close and it’s comforting as a young woman hiking the Appalachian Trail to have the same group of people hiking with you that you can open up to a bit and trust that they would look after you if you were sick or didn’t show up to camp. I left camp late this morning since there really is no time requirements for anything out here. A bunch of us had also been up late talking the night before with a group of thru-hikers trying to chase their ‘coon dog who decided the full moon was perfect light to stir up raccoons in the valley. This morning I was alone, cruising fast along the ridges of Georgia enjoying the shorts and t-shirt weather when I ran into Wrong Way, Jess, Connor and Franky the Sleeper taking a lunch break at a gap parking lot. (South of the Mason-Dixon they call the lowest place in the mountains where a road can cross through a “gap”, north of the line it’s a “notch” and out west it’s a “mountain pass”.)
We talked about the recently legislated bear canister requirements at an upcoming 5.5 mile section of the AT where a bunch of us had planned on staying. A bear canister is like a mini oil drum barrel that is bulky, awkward as hell to strap onto a backpack and is supposed to be bearproof storage for food. No AT thru-hiker is going to shell out $80 and add 5 pounds for a 5.5 mile section of trail so the choice came down to stopping to camp before the bear section or risk staying at a shelter with very smart and hungry bears. A couple people moved on to stay at the bear shelters and risked potential for a $500 fine and becoming bear bait but the majority of us stayed at a riverside campsite before the trouble section.
We later heard stories about how in 2013 in one of the trouble camping areas a guy got in late to a crowded shelter so he pitched a tent outside. After hearing a bear snuffling around his head twice (he had no food in his tent), he moved his sleeping quarters and squeezed into the very outermost shelter spot nearest the door. He woke up to this same overly curious bear dragging him in his sleeping bag out of the shelter by the ankle. People in the shelter grabbed his torso and started playing tug-of-war with the bear who finally let him go with only minor injuries to his foot and lumbered off. In the morning his tent was found ripped to shreds and his backpack contents strewn across the mountainside. The fact that the bear went after the human instead of food was what caused the recent change in policy. We were sure glad that we didn’t stay there!!
Since Jess, Wrong Way and I were the first to arrive at the Lance Creek campsite after a short 8.5 mile day, we followed unofficial thru-hiker code and started the fire. For some reason I was showing them the branches I collected before I threw them into the fire and as I was about throw in “the cute fuzzy branch” their eyes widened and they both yelled to stop moving. Turns out I was about to throw in poison oak which would’ve sent everyone to the hospital if it had burned. Yikes!! I threw the branch far into the woods and washed my hands vigorously. Thankfully I didn’t do any damage and never got a rash. I was served up another helping of humble pie that afternoon from this near-miss.
For entertainment that night, we had three guys from Missouri who were hiking for a week decide they really wanted to find out what was tied up in a red handkerchief that was stuck 40 ft up a tree. Boots, a college mechanical engineering professor, was so determined to get what was probably rocks tied up in a bandana (sometimes used to throw a bear bag line over a tree branch) that he created a contraption of a 60 lb log lashed to a branch with his belt that he had duct taped to his knife to cut down the bandana. Not even kidding, 4 hours later the bandana (which was filled with rocks and not gold like someone joked) was on the ground. Persistence and redneck ingenuity kept about 20 of us entertained for a good long while out in the woods. I’m starting to realize it’s the simple things that count out here!
During these 4 hours, Franky the Sleeper, Jess, Connor, Wrong Way, Sock Man and I were having our own redneck entertainment trying to find a tree branch to tie our food bags to so bears wouldn’t get it. We spent a hilarious hour trying to get the bear bag in the tree and ended up with us all in tears from laughing so hard (and Franky in tears from Sock Man accidentally letting the rock anchor swing back and hit him in the gentlemanly area!)
I ended up cowboy camping under the zillions of stars and only threw my tent up when the sky decided to shower down on us for ten minutes. Jess was nice enough to wake up and help me set up my tent that night which was awesome. Kinda felt like an idiot after the rain stopped and I think my tent looked like a garbage bag with a pole sticking sideways out of it but I stayed mostly dry!
Pictures below from top to bottom are:
1. View from Big Cedar Mountain at 3,737 ft. The rocky mountain in the background on the left (kinda hard to see) is Blood Mountain that we hiked for sunrise the next morning and is Georgia’s tallest mountain at 4,450 ft.
2. Nice weather and a pair of sweet new shades thru-hiker Wet Dog found in a shelter were a cause for some big smiles!
