Day 5- Low Gap Shelter to Tray Mountain Shelter

15.4 miles hiked today, bringing the total to 58.5.

Start time: 8:20 am
End time 6:50 pm

We started the day with some decisions to make.  Unicoi gap was an easy 10 miles away. From there you can get picked up by a hostel. A hostel  means we could shower,  do laundry, go to an all you can eat buffet in Hiawassee,  resupply, spend the night in a warm, clean place with indoor plumbing. However, to make it to our goal of Hot Springs,  NC by Memorial Day, we need to cover some ground. Since our bodies are mostly holding up, we decided to go for a long day.

Thunderstorms are coming Wed afternoon and throughout the day on Thurday. One additional factor was that we started the day almost out of fuel. So we need to at least pick up fuel in the next day or two. We can survive without fuel, but warm food and drink sure help when you are tired.  Given all the factors, we decide to do a long day in case rain slows us down later. We also hope to bang out a full day of hiking on Wed by starting early and heading to Hiawassee before the thunderstorms hit. We will see if the weather and our hiking abilities align with this plan.

Experienced hikers will likely raise an eyebrow that an 8 oz canister only lasted us 5 days. All I can say is, I've burned through that much fuel in one weekend, I like to cook. Go eat some mashed potatoes and ramen, you fuel horders....I'll be cooking real food while you efficiently boil water. 

This was another day of climbing. Lots of climbing. The first couple of hours out of Low Gap Shelter were a gradual climb. The first hour we covered 2.5 miles. We then slowed to 2 mph in the second hour. The trail was smooth and gradual, great for making good time. But pretty quickly,  I felt drained,  I had very little energy. 

Sage could have covered the first 8 miles to our lunch destination much faster, I was really dragging. 

Sage taunted me by suggesting I should get a jar of Nutella like hers. She may be right,  I noticed at the end of the day that she has consumed over half of the box shop sized jar.

We made it to Blue Mountain shelter for a late lunch. Sage had ramen and I had an amazing veggie curry. After our extended lunch break, I felt great and hiked the rest of the day with normal energy. By normal, I mean that I struggled up every climb. 

When you can't find the trail, just look for rocks. There were some sections today where our feet rarely touched dirt.

Sage is home schooled, so I am obligated to take the fun out of any trip by adding educational objectives. I asked her to take a picture of one interesting,  unique plant  a day. We will later try to find out more about the plant when we have some down time with good internet.

She objected: Can't I do bugs instead?

I offered the compromise she could do one of each. So that's the plan. Good thing she stopped negotiations,  I was ready to add rocks and trees.

After descending into Unicoi Gap, the 10 mile point on our hike,  we chatted with two hikers who arrived in the gap minutes before. They asked: Did you see the Mama bear with two cubs? She was just off the trail when we went through.

No....we didn't see the bears. Which either means they were long gone, or Mama bear doesn't like Nutella.

At the start of our hike someone told us: Tray Mountain is even worse than Blood Mountain.  It wasnt. 

I wouldn't believe anything you read about the difficulty or ease of the Appalachian Trail. Including any descriptions in this blog.  There are just too many variables.  But i will say this, if you have never hiked, it doesn't matter which mountain you pick, it will be hard. 

It was a good day of hiking. I'm filthy, covered in bug bites, and my feet feel like they were run over by a truck. But no blisters....so I'll just take some Ibuprofen and press on. As for Sage,  her feet are doing OK as well, only one small blister and we have it taped up. We are both ready for a shower and clean laundry.