The Hike, Week 105: 2/10/06
With obligations taking us to Atlanta early in the week, we booked a
cabin in North Georgia's Vogel State Park for the end of the week, to
use as a base for a hike on the Appalachian Trail between Woody Gap
and Neel's Gap, an 11-mile trek that would take us over Blood
Mountain--at
4,461 feet the highest mountain on the AT in Georgia.
The logistics of the day were that we'd drive to the north end of our
walk--Neel's Gap--plant the car, and have ace shuttler Wes Wisson
drive us back to Woody Gap to begin walking. I'd ridden with Wes once
before, when I got off the trail at Woody Gap having walked that far
north with son Carl as he began a long section hike, back in 2001. On
this day, Wes was again full of great trail tidbits: He estimated that
about 100 thru-hikers had already begun this year, and said that so
far he had taken more hikers off the trail (and taken them back to the
Atlanta
airport) than he had put on the trail.
"It's the know-it-alls, same as always," he said. "Too much weight in
the pack, too little thinking about what they're really setting out to
do."
Wisson, with an endless string of anecdotes and hiker tales (ask him
about the Englishman and the three heavy ladies) may well be the
single most knowledgeable person about the trail who--as he is proud
to point out--has never once set foot upon it.
Our hike--"you're headed thataway," Wes was wont to mention, pointing
north--was a glorious one, full of good climbs and even better views,
with a nice fire at lunch and the company of a father-and-daughter
pair (he perhaps late 50s, she 18) who had set out three days earlier
at the southern terminus of the trail with a plan to hike until May
15, when they had to be back in Bar Harbor, Maine to open the family's
ice cream store for the season. He was already suffering from knee
pain and she was only recently recovered from her own medical
problems, but they seemed positive and strong there near the beginning
of a trek that could take them past the Mason Dixon Line.
The highlight of the walk was the top of Blood Mountain, a rocky peak
with great views in all directions and an old stone shelter from the
1930s. (When we were back home and asked Carl about his recollection
of the shelter, he said he spent the night there and remembered an
unsettling 3 a.m. visit from a scruffy hiker carrying only a plastic
bag; next day Carl met him again at Neel's Gap and learned the young
man had had his pack stolen and was walking from Florida to Canada to
raise money for cancer patients.)
On our way down the mountain, Gail was reminded of a lesson from
Ghandi when she came across a single fancy dress glove in the trail.
"Remember what he did when he lost the shoe jumping on the train as it
pulled out?" Gail said. "As soon as he realized it, he threw the other
shoe back toward the one he'd lost, with the hope that someone would
have the pair."
There's trail magic and there is trail magic, and here was one strong
example, as within the next quarter mile, there appeared in the muddy
trail the mate to the first found glove. Just Gail's size they were,
though of course she looked forward to getting down to the parking
area at Neel's gap and finding the owner of the gloves. She searched
two parking lots and the wonderful store where the AT crosses U.S. 19,
but to no avail. Beautiful black-leather, fur-lined gloves they are,
in case there is she out there who lost them on February 10, between
Blood Mountain and Neel's Gap, out on the Georgia Appalachian Trail.
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