Day 6: addis gap to dicks creek gap

The first mile nobo (northbound) from addis gap is sometimes called "the longest mile" because it gains over 1000 feet in elevation with no real place to rest. Lucky for me, I can rest on the upbound. :)

It was foggy and windy and rainy. I am getting used to the clothing changes, take off layers on the uphill (ie when you are working up a sweat), then put them on for the downhill. Not that downhill is much easier; there are many things to trip up the feet and mud holes to navigate through, but I don't sweat as much.

Clothing changes are harder to do when it is super nasty out. When it's raining or snowing or icing, you don't really want to stop. So most of the time I have been hiking in a short sleeve wool tshirt, and my rain jacket.

We made pretty good time to dicks creek gap, only saw one other hiker (snow frog) and ended up giving him a ride to hiawassee. Ate a last meal - Italian - and went back to the hotel to figure out how to stuff everything in my pack. Easier said than done. 10 lbs of food and 4.4 lbs of water really weighs down my pack, but there's not much to be done about it. I already decided to leave the nook at home, along with my extra short sleeve shirt, and about half my med kit. We'll see how it goes, I guess. By the time we get to Franklin maybe we will have some more ideas about what to trim down.