[at-l] N. Georgia Hike - October 22

October 22
I don't think I slept all that well last night. Besides the usual night noises of leaves falling all
around us and the early morning hoot of an owl we were all in a superb position to hear some less
welcome sounds.  Perhaps the most noticable noises were those created by the mouse (mice?) in the
shelter.  It, or they, seemed to be spending a good deal of time pushing some of the cook pots on
the shelter table around. It sounded rather like a coke can being slightly squeezed and then
released so it could pop back into shape. I imagine the little critters were trying to get into
Ken's (the leader of the FTA group outing) re-hydrating apples with cinamon.  In the middle distance
there were several conversations in the myriad tents that surrounded the shelter, but those were not
really irritating. The screams and hollers from the campsite just south of the shelter area were
bothersome though.   One little sequence of sounds was both amusing and very worrisome at the same
time. One lady, whose name I never did quite figure out (the short one), had gone to answer nature's
call and managed to get herself turned around in the woods. She was calling out to her friend and
tent mate over and over "Lori, Lori" but Lori did not hear her at first. Lori was chatting in her
tent with others and the calls were growing fainter. Our lady was heading the wrong way. It was a
serious game of Marco Polo. Eventually, Lori heard her name and a light was turned on and things
wokred out, but  I expect our wandering lass was a bit panicked during the time. In the morning she
was able to smile about it and she'll learn from her adventure (she was a first time backpacker and
is clearly now really into it).

The noises bugged me and I also just found it hard to sleep comfortably. I was sleeping without the
silk liner because I thought I'd stay cooler. That was true, but the sticky feel of the sleeping
bag's inner nylon surface just was not as comfortable against my skin. Next time I'll lay the silk
liner over myself like a blanket when using the bag in quilt fashion.

People started waking up and shining lights into the shelter around 06:45. I was mostly up but I did
not want to really get going. It was still dark. What could I do in the dark? I waited a bit before
getting up, throwing on my clothing, and having my pop tart breakfast. Even so I was pretty much set
to go before there was enouh light to hike so I had to wait. Of course, waiting wasn't so bad since
I could talk with everyone else that was there. John, Ron, and I were among the first to leave the
shelter at 08:00. But, people from the FTA group began trickling out soon after us.

The day was starting out with a good amount of mist and humidity with a temperature in the mid 50s.
I was actually wearing my Paramo shirt warm side in when sitting around the shelter doing
essentially nothing. When I started hiking the shirt got reversed and stayed on until I reached Deep
Gap.  We made the descent of the AT in about half an hour. We all noticed the mountains surrounding
Deep Gap more today than we had the day before. It really is a pretty area. When we arrived in Deep
Gap we found it home to a sizeable number of tents. This area of the Nantahalas Wilderness is
clearly a major stomping grounds for backpackers.

We were not really sure which road we wer supposed to take to get to Standing Indian Campground so
we decided to take the Kimsey Creek Trail instead. As we made that decision Len and Lois  joined us
and we started down towrds where we thought the trail was. We made a mistake. Some people down by
the trail called out to us, having told us sort of where the trail already was, to let us know we
had gone astray. We had a tiny bushwack to reach the trail and then we were off.

This trail follows the Kimsey Creek very closely. In fact, when the creek and its feeder creeks are
running high parts of the trail must be underwater.  The trail reminded me of the part of the AT
that is a few miles south of Bland, Virginia  that crossed a local creek at least a dozen times. I
think the Kimsey Creek Trail was gentler though. 

Because the trail followed creeks that actually had water in them the air had grown a bit heavier
with moisture but I was not cold. I was enjoying the hiking and the fall scenery.  Autum is well
advanced in this region around the 4,000 foot level, but on the Kimsey Creek Trail you can still
find plenty of green. The vast majority of green flora are rhododendron. It is a forest of
rhododendron bushes and must be full of vibrant colors when the plants flower in the spring. The
contrasts of fall browns, yellows, reds, deep greens was stunning. There were also many trees that
were bare and they added to the variety of treats for the eye too. 

As we descended the Kimsey Creek grew larger as more feeder creeks fed into it. We even passed a few
locations that had some nice sounding cateracts in them. The trail skirts the creek along some rocky
slanting sections and in one case I almost had a grand slip and slide into the creek.

We leapfrogged Lois, Len, and a couple other FTA hikers during our descent.  The majority of the
group was obviously well behind taking their time coming off the mountain.  We never did see them
again.  It was nice to leapfrog rhike with Len, Lois, and the others. Especially when the trail did
some odd things. When the trail left the banks of the creek and began traveling along an old woods
road I think it lost a lot of its charm. Part of that feeling though is due to the simple fact that
walking the road was less fun than the trail. There were so many leaves on the old woods road that
you could not see the rocks underneat. It felt like I was twisting my feet every few yards.

Eventually we approached what I beleive is known as Campsite A. We could smell campfires and camp
cooking long before we saw the campsite. The smells were very inviting. We said goodbye to the FTA
hikers and struck out on what we thought was the right trail. We began to climb up and curve around
the mountainside. It seemed like we were travelling away from the campsite and we were not at all
sure we were where we should be. The problem is that it appears all the trails are blazed with blue
markers. We eventually decided to take a trail that went down into the amphitheatre and head towards
the Nantahala River.  Once we did that we walked a ways and in the general direction of the water
and we must have picked well because we came out right by the bridge that crossed the river.  We
crossed the bridge and followed the main road the short distance to where  the camp store is. I
think we actually walked a bit more than the 3.7 miles of the Kimsey Trail. I imagine we covered
some 4.7 to 4.9 miles in the little more than two and a quarter hours we spent on the trail. It was
late morning and I don't think the day had erally warmed up that much although a lot of the mist had
burned off. We said goodbye to the campground and  started our drive back to Amicalola State Park
around 11:20.

As we drove back to Amicalola we came to  the small town of Dalongha (sp?) where something was
clearly happening. There were cops all over directing , sort of, traffic.  We asked one cop for
directions were given some and we tried to follow them. We followed them as best as we could and got
to a point where we were told we had to turn around or if we were here for the Gold Rush, whatevr
that is, that we could park. The way was blocked for this Gold Rush thing after this point. We
turned around. The next cop we asked for directions said, "you can't get there from here," before
giving us some good directions on how to get to the park. We eventually arrived, waited in a long
but swiftly moving line, to pay our entrance fee and found John's truck right where it was supposed
to be. Before we did anything else we took our packs to the hanging scale to weigh them. We had
packs that were essentially down to their base weights and the packs therefore gave pretty accurate
weight reading for the last couple days of the hike. Since we had all sent some gear home by this
time the weights were a bit low when compared to what we each started the trip with. All our packs
yielded readings of 17 pounds (that includes the two pounds for my camear pouch and its contents). 
I'm not sure how much heavier John and Ron's packs were at the start of the trip before they sent
stuff home but mine  probably about two pounds heavier.

After the weighing we moved stuff that had been stored in John's truck out and got ready to hit the
road to Catawba, Virginia. I think it was about 14:40 when we left the park.  Since we had to pass
through Neels Gap again we paused briefly at the gear shop there, but no one bought anything this
time. We did talk with Jeff Hansen and a couple other people though about our hike and how happy we
were with our new hiking shoes. John also began querying everyone he passed for the final score of
the first game of the world series. One kid he asked retored,  "what game?" I guess down in the deep
south a Subway Series is not very interesting. John's quest for information was futile. We did not
find out how the game really ended until several hours later.

We stopped at the NOC just after 18:00 and got to watch a whitewater kayaker run the course by the
NOC and practice his skills in the fading light. We then went into the resteraunt there for a dinner
break before singing a chorus a happy birthday to our server (the other staff members told us it was
a special day for her) and returning to the road around 19:20 to continue our drive to Catawba. We
may not go all the way tonight, but we'll get close and tomorrow we will have a great time at McAfee
Knob.

©copyright 2000, Kenneth Knight
**  Kenneth Knight    Web Design, IT Consultant, Software Engineer  **
**       krk@speakeasy.org        http://www.speakeasy.org/~krk     **
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