March 29

The Cheese

Well so much for a zero day.  Feet are still banged up pretty good, but I'm well enough to keep hiking.  Passed a nice spring this morning that cut right through the trail.  There were pretty yellow wild flowers in bloom all along the spring.  The first goal for today is to make it to Blue Mountain Shelter about 7 miles up the trail.  Got there a little after noon, and took a lunch break.  Another hiker, Dave, suggested lacing my shoes differently to skip a loop or two to help loosen them up.  Going to try that and see how it goes.  Decision time coming up.  Should we try to shoot the gap at Unicoi?  Went for it, and came down off of Blue Mountain down into the gap for a loss of 1000 feet of elevation.  Then up, up, up Rocky Mountain.  There were some nice tent sites, great views, and some other hikers I knew up there at the summit that were stopping for the day.  Still a few hours of daylight left, so KB and I pushed on for tenting at the "Cheese Factory" site.  Ironically, the block of cheddar I had started with from Springer had just run out yesterday, so I mused that I could just pick up some more cheese if we pushed on to the factory, haha.  So down Rocky Mountain we went, and a small climb up to the site.  There was a forest road crossing, and I left a message made of broken sticks that said "0.3 Cheese", so that another hiker a few minutes behind us, named Darwin, would know that we were close to the campsite.  So, the "Cheese Factory" site is named as such as there was a dairy farm at that location in the early 1800s.  The locals thought this guy was crazy for putting a farm way up in the mountains (over 3500 feet), but after he started winning awards for his cheeses, I suppose he proved to everyone that mountain cows are happy cows.  KB, Darwin, and I set up our tents in a nice grassy area, cooked dinner, and went to sleep right at sundown.  There were several others tenting under the cover of a rhododendron thicket nearby.  Feet feel a litte bit better, but still not great.  I'll see how tomorrow goes I guess.  13.4 miles done today, biggest day yet!

Chattahoochee Gap signpost.