Today was a tough day on the trail in the north Georgia mountains. I'd planned on doing 12 miles, but only got 9.5 done and I felt bad most of the day. "Squeaky" kicked my butt up and down hill all day long. 45-50 lbs is too much for me; I've got to get it down closer to 40 lbs or less. The weather, however, was great for the third day in a row: dry, sunny and warm with a high of about 67 degrees.
The hardest part of the day was Sassafras Mountain which started at 2,600' and summited at 3,400' in less than 1 mile. There were many other similar ups and downs thru the day.
We made camp on the trail as dusk was approaching and we were still several miles from the nearest shelter. We picked a clearing about 1/2 way between Gooch Gap and Liss Gap. Camp set up went well. We hung our own bear trap for food, Squeaky dug a nice 2-hole 'poop-a-torium', and we set up our Vector 22 on a nice flat spot.
The bad part was we could not make coffee or hot food because we were conserving water and we did not think we'd be able to get any more water until Neel's Gap, which was 13-14 miles away. The downside of the beautiful weather we were experiencing was that it was an extension of the record drought that Georgia had suffered throughout 2007.
I slept really warm and well on the ground with my ProLite 3 and BeeLine. The next morning we got up early (6 am) and were on the trail by 7:45 am. A better day ahead I hope!
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