Milk and Girl Scout Cookies

Day 14 - After surviving the thunderstorms that lasted all night we awoke to everything wet.  No surprise there. We decided to pack it up, put it on, and start walking. Breakfast was a cold bagel with peanut butter because our food is low and we ate all the oatmeal. BJ said the morning hike was like "walking in milk". We started with whole milk and by lunch was in skim milk. As the day cleared we arrived at an old stone fire lookout built in the 1930's. Flute suggested we eat lunch up there. She was right, it was a great view. We ran into two of the 7 that decided to stay at that shelter curled up in the fetal position another day instead of hiking in the rain. One even commented when we walked up how wet we were and that we need new rain gear. As you can imagine I was not in the mood after a 8 mile hike in a downpour. What makes this story funny is that their trail names are Eagle Scout and Survivor man. I guess the true colors show when the crap gets bad. Any who, I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I told the Eagle Scout that he needed to change his name to girl scout. You should have seen the look on their faces. They began blaming each other about not hiking in the rain. About a mile from camp the three of us came across more trail magic. It was a thru hiker from 2009. He and his blind mini-pincher, Tinkerbell had an awesome tent set up and were making burgers until you were full. Neither him or the pancake guy from a few days ago wanted a donation. There was a crazy moment when Tinkerbell walked into the fire pit and Play Dough, a guy from Georgia, grabbed her. Bj said it was one of the best hiking days he has had. We got to Cold Gap early enough to dry out our smelly things and head to Bryson City in the morning.

Location:Cold Gap, NC