Cruising into Hiawassee

Right now, I’m at the Holiday Inn Express in Hiawassee, Georgia, and it’s about 8:30 at night on Monday, March 25. After the past eight days of hiking, the low temps, the high winds, and just generally roughing it, this feels like the nicest hotel on the planet. I'm sitting here drinking a dark German lager and eating pound cake and reflecting on the fact that earlier today, I was battling 40-plus mph winds, trying to make it to the point where I could get a ride into town. But I’m getting ahead of myself a little.

 So, on Sunday night, I was staying at the Shaw Mountain campsite. I’d just gotten into my sleeping bag, and the temperature was dropping fast. All of a sudden, I heard a loud crash, and a bunch of people sort of gasped and then started laughing. I figured that was a good sign, because it implied that nobody had been hurt by whatever had made the noise.

Then somebody started walking through the campsite saying, “Hey, if you hung your bear bag on the bear line, you better come get it, because the line just broke.” Apparently, the main wire on the rig that people hang their food bags from at night to prevent the bears from getting into them had snapped, and everybody's bear bags had fallen down. So I got out of my tent, got my hanging kit out, and start trudging through the woods to find an appropriate branch to hang my bear bag from.

That was my first official bear hang, and it actually worked out pretty well. That was good practice, because when hikers leave Georgia and go into North Carolina, you have to know how to hang your food bag, because the campsites typically don't provide any preventative measures. In Georgia, some campsites have a bear box, which is a big metal container, and some have a bear line, which is a big wire that stretches between two trees, and you hook your food bag to it and hoist it up. But this is what had broken at the campsite last night, so I guess they’re not exactly foolproof.

The next morning, I woke up to what seemed like gale force winds and sub-zero temperatures. The campsite was at about 4,200 feet. Very cold, so I wasn't necessarily all that anxious to get going. But I knew I was going to be in a hotel tonight, and that provided pretty much all the motivation I needed. So I ate a protein bar while I broke camp and then got moving. The trail was on the windward side of things, so it was just brutal — just beating down on all of us who were trying to get off the mountain.

If I’d had any more clothing in my pack, I would have put it on, but I was already wearing everything I’d brought. The theme of the day was really just get the hell away from the wind and get off the mountain. And every hiker I bumped into along the way felt the same way. We were all sort of united in our misery about the wind and the temperature and the unforgiving terrain.

So I focused on getting the heck down to Dick's Creek Gap, where I could get a ride into town. After a roughly 12-mile day, I made it down, but I missed the free shuttle into Hiawassee by about 45 minutes. I got there about 2:45, and the next one wasn’t coming until 5:30. And I didn't feel like waiting around that long.

I looked on the Far Out app and found someone in the area who agreed to pick me up. While I was waiting, I saw Miss Janet and Dexter again. She was literally just passing through and just stopped to see if anyone needed anything. Thankfully, my ride showed up about 15 minutes later. He was a really nice guy in this little red Subaru. He threw my bag in the back, and I climbed in the front seat.

 I didn't realize that this guy’s daughter was in the back seat until she started talking at about 100 mph, which she did for the entire ride into town. She had story after story after story. At one point, she said, “When I was young...” which made me laugh, because I’d guess she's about six years old. Anyway, she said that one time, she’d been running in the house with a piece of cardboard in her hand, and she’d tripped and fallen into her mom and stabbed her in the eye with the cardboard, and it scratched her mom's cornea.

 At this point, her dad, who was driving, suddenly made this alarming gagging noise. Apparently, he has a thing about eyes and eye injuries, and his little girl was being pretty graphic about how her mom's eye had started to bleed. So we’re driving long, and she’s talking nonstop, and dad’s gagging. It was pretty funny.

They dropped me off at the hotel, and after I checked in, pretty much the first thing I did was take a long, super hot shower that practically melted all the skin off my body, which was necessary because I was so dirty. I also discovered that I had three different rashes I’d had no idea were there. Add to this that my lips were split in a few places from the winds. It was probably a good time for me to get off the trail and get cleaned up a bit.

After that, I made my way over to Ingles Market. For those of you who don't know, Ingles is a pretty popular supermarket chain throughout the Southeast. I got myself an Ingles card to save a few bucks (and I anticipate hitting another Ingles or two down the line) and bought some beer, a big sub, and some pound cake. For whatever reason, that sounded delicious. I had planned to do my laundry next, but unfortunately, the washing machine for guests is broken, so I’ll have to figure something else out tomorrow. Thank goodness I'm not hitting the trail.

 Basically, I'm looking forward to going into a coma in a matter of minutes, and then tomorrow, I’ll wake up, get my clothes cleaned, get my resupply organized, and enjoy another luxurious night in a hotel. I'll hit the trail again on Wednesday, which should be a pretty big hiking day.