March 11, 2012 The Hobbit Hole to Black Gap Shelter

Housekeeping:  I'll be posting my journals from the trip, but I'm hoping that the girls will chime in with their own take on these days.


Here we go.

Day 1.  Woke up too early at the Hobbit Hole--a single family home/simulated English village complete with thatched cottages where toolsheds, barns or other outbuildings would be.  The lovely folks there made us a delicious hot breakfast and shuttled us to Amicalola Falls State Park. 

We got to AFSP around 10am, filled water bottles, signed in, weighed bags (one of the girls' bags was quite heavy--~30 lbs!--and we pleaded with her to turn over any excess weight she was smuggling, she aquiessed and turned over a book and an extra top.  I suspected there was more. 

We took pictures under the arch and were off, straight up the hill.  In the wrong direction.  A ranger at the bottom of the hill sorted us out "Well, you can go that way, but if you go the right way it'll be easier."  The 'easier' way led us by a stream and straight to the base of 600 strenuous stairs.  Strenuous.  I felt the burn, I huffed and puffed.  Though I suspected some of the girls would cry on the way up, none of them did.  The day continued to be strenuous (why doesn't anyone ever say that the Approach trail is HARDCITY?  Seriously, folks at home?  The Approach Trail is HARD.) 

Besides the stairs we did two more big climbs over Mt. Frosty and out of Nimblewill Gap over Black Mountain.  Though the trail was initially steep out of Nimblewill gap, the trail crosses the mountain and then begins a gentle, meandering descent into Black Gap, where we made camp. 

No one was using the shelter so we put the girls' tents behind the shelter and made dinner at the picnic table in front of the shelter.  Tortellini and pesto and sundried tomatoes.  Yes, these girls have gourmet taste.  I'm not complaining.  Hung our food--the shelters in Georgia all have bear cables.  Basically, there's a heavy duty cable strung between two trees.  From this horizontal line hang 4 pulleys with clips at each end--think flag poles--and these are fastened to the two outer trees.  You unclip a cable from the tree, attach your food bag to the business end, hoist it up to the horizontal cable and then clip it to the tree.  Easy!  Though hanging bear-bags is usually the most hilarious part of the day, I was glad for the user friendly nature of the bear-cables.  After the food was up we had a campfire and were in bed by 9 (Hiker Midnight).

The Eaglet Express

No Joke

Taking a break at Nimblewill Gap

Making Dinner

Checking out tomorrow's topo

Plotting something mischievous...

Feral Cat vs the Spitfire

Why my tent has patches.  Originally posted March 12, 2010


Meet the Spitfire. It weighs in at 2 lbs 12 oz. It is pretty much a little mesh pod with a bathtub-floor sporting taped seams. It is light weight, breezy and the perfect solo-hiking tent. I love it. Love Love Love.

I get home from backpacking last weekend, and like the good scout that I am, I set all the tents up in the backyard to air out. The $30 Walmart tent, Laura's 2 person tent and my Spitfire. All in a neat little row taking in the Miami sunshine and ruffling slightly in the cool ocean breeze.


Now: Meet Feral Cat.

Feral Cat crawls into the Spitfire because I left about a 6 inch gap in the door when I threw the stakes in after setting it up. The Spitfire is not free standing, so I figured I'd just put the two end stakes in--so that it would stand--but not fully stake it out, because after all, it was just airing out.

When Feral Cat gets into the Spitfire, she must have decided that it wasn't roomy enough for her and that she would rather be Out of the Spitfire. But Feral Cat is stupid or something because instead of crawling out of the little gap that she came in through, Feral Cat decides to start bouncing back and forth within the Spitfire. From one end to the other with claws out.

I see this going on through the window and run down to let Feral Cat out of the Spitfire. But instead of how I envisioned this rescue mission: open the door, Feral Cat runs out without any further trouble, it actually goes like this: Feral Cat sees me approach and breaks into an all out sprint--still inside the Spitfire--which just rips the stakes loose and collapses the Spitfire. Now Feral Cat is REALLY mad. Feral Cat continues to sprint, wrapped up inside the noseeum netting and nylon, all around the yard before landing on a pile of debris behind the laundry room. On top of an old rusty ironing board. At this point I'm able to grab onto one of the tent poles and slowly reach down and unzip the door. Feral Cat is free. Spitfire is down for the count.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to repair ripped noseeum netting (think dozens of dime to hand sized holes) and torn nylon?

Feral Cat 1, Spitfire 0