Appalachian Trail (day 4) - Blue Mountain Shelter to Dick's Creek Gap / mile 70

"What do you get when you get married - a marriage licence. What do you get when two lesbians get married - a liquor licence" George, the shuttle driver

I decided to kill two birds with one stone today. I urgently needed a new sleeping bag and a printout of the Smoky Mountains Pass. The luck was on my side, after early start I've reached the road leading to Hiawassee and managed to catch a hostel owner dropping his customers back to trail, I asked him if he could take me back with him and he said that he can take me almost there, 3 miles outside the town which was good enough for me.

I got a second ride after 15 minutes from outside of Dollar General, I've been a second hiker in the car so had to curl at the back without seat but the ride was saving me an hour of time and I wanted to catch a free shuttle back to trail at 11am so I wasn't complaining.

Outfitters were not opened until 10am so I had an hour to burn, I went to a local market called Ingles, got a questionable breakfast (hash brown, runny eggs and poor quality bacon and sausages) for $6 and a hazelnut coffee for $1.5, then I sat down outside and had a chat with two "yellow blazing" looking hikers, none of them was rushing back to trail and seemed like they rather skip sections of the trail by hitchhiking, each to their own I guess.

Lady at the post office told me where I will be able to print out my permit, which I did and paid only $1 for it (it was two pages), then I was back just in time for the opening of the outfitters shop. They had down filled model of a Marmot bag I was using, but it was $450 and I simply couldn't risk loosing that much money if it got soaked again, so I went for much cheaper ($150) and almost as warm but very slightly heavier sleeping bag made by Big Agnes. I left my dear old Marmot bag which went through both PCT and TA in the hiker box, talked some trash with other hikers outside of Ingles and catched the free shuttle back to trail as planned.

The trail was very rollercoastery today but the weather was great so I still managed to do decent miles. I found a lost hat along the trail and I was wearing it for the rest of the day asking the hikers I was passing by if it's theirs but without any luck. I finally left it at Dick's Gap by the road where it had best chances to be found.

At the campsite the older guy with trail name Peace helped me to hang my food from the tree on a piece of string (to protect it from bears) after my few failed attempts to do so. Peace was section hiking the Appalachian Trail for the last twelve years, and this year was his final 500 miles to finish it all off and retire from it (as he said).

After that I laid in my new, cozy Blue Agnes sleeping bag and it felt amazing to zip it up and fell warm and toasty, it gave me an immense sense of security that after a rainy cold day or during cold night I have this safety buffer I can rely on.

Good night!