Day 6

Low Gap Shelter to Cheese Factory site.

13.4 miles today. 56.5 total miles.

Today was a tough, hot and interesting day.
Filtered my water mere feet from my tent at 8:30 am and began the steady 8 mile climb out of Low Gap Shelter to the summit of Blue Mountain (4,000 ft). 75 degrees by late morning.
Then a 1,000 ft drop in elevation in just 1.2 miles off the back side of Blue to Unicoi Gap, a fairly major road that hikers quite often use to meet shuttle drivers to take them to various hotel and/or hostel options in the towns of Helen or Hiawassee 10-12 miles down the road.
This is where me, Big T, Richard and 7 other hikers (one from New Zealand) found our first trail magic!!
Smoky Bear was parked there in his old SUV offering up sodas, fruit, pkgs of ramen, bags of chips, etc. . Was a wonderful sight.
He was rough around the edges but his heart was certainly in the right place.
He said he had thru hiked 20 years before, and his trail name is Smoky Bear as he smokes a pack a day, and his wife says he snores like a bear. He is a true character.
After a 30 min break in the Gap, we set off straight uphill to the top of Rocky Mtn (1k ft elevation in 1.4 miles), followed by a 1,000 ft rocky descent crossing Tray Mountain dirt road to Indian Grave Gap.
Was getting late in the day with nowhere to camp there, so trudged as fast as I could 1 mile uphill to the old Cheese Factory site to get my tent set up before darkness.
Karaoke, Dan, Thumper and her husband Rabbit, and 3 other folks were just in front of me.
I got the last flat tent site, quickly fixed dinner by the glow of my headlamp, then threw my bear bag (bag with all my food and other items that could attract a bear) securely up into the branches and got to work catching some Zzz’s by 9:30 pm as tomorrow will be a long, hot and arduous day.Read more