Saturday June 2, miles today 16.7, miles from Springer 85.7

Busy day today, Major Tom and I caught the 8 am shuttle to the Dick's Creek Gap trailhead and started a long day of climbs and drops.  Mostly climbs, we ended up 2100 feet higher.

I passed Major Tom about two miles up the trail and he told me my pack smelled like gasoline.  I climbed the next hill which was long, steep and unusually straight before I stopped to investigate.  Digging out my fuel bottle I found that a gasket was missing.  I had an extra in my maintenance kit at the bottom of my pack so I started digging stuff out.  In the process I dug out my sleeping bag which was perfect tightly packed cylinder.  Seconds later I looked back and it was rolling down that long, steep, straight trail.  I took off in a sprint but it was accelerating.  After about 50 yards I finally caught up.  What a waste of energy.  I climbed back up the trail, fixed my fuel bottle, repacked my backpack and continued on.

About 9 miles along I arrived at the Ga-NC border.  To celebrate the entry into my second state I decided to do something I have never done in my life, take a selfie.  It was pretty ugly so I combed my hair and tried again, it didn't help.

NC/GA border selfie

 About 1/4 mile further I came upon Obi Wan who was sitting on a log near the trail famous gnarly oak that represents the North Carolina border.  As we took pictures of each other by the oak a woman backpacker and told us that there was bear problems here the previous night.  About 50 yards off the trail was a tent so the 3 of us went over to investigate.  The entry to the tent was torn off and there was the remains of food packages, a stove, some sleeping pads and other junk scattered around it.  I guess a good lesson is don't keep food in your tent while in bear country.

Bear ravaged camp

Hellcat, Obi Wan and I arrived at Muskrat shelter at 5 pm to find a note from Major Tom saying he had gone on to Standing Indian mountain shelter 5 miles further.  We decided to follow and arrived there pretty tired at 7:30.