Day 7 Dicks Creek Gap to Muskrat Creek Shelter

Today's miles 11.8.  AT total 81.4

It was a later start than planned today.  The only shop (Buckhead House) selling camping gas canisters in town was closed yesterday (Tuesdays) during the winter season. We needed more gas for our next few days of camping so had to wait until 10am this morning for it to open to resupply.  (Good news for anyone else coming thru, is she's open Mon&Sat from now on). We packed our bags and headed to Hardees again for breakfast.  A funny old local guy came up to us and said "You heading to Maine?  You carrying a gun? Those bears are a waking up!"  We replied , yes, no and just smiled!  After breakfast we went to Buckhead House for 10.  Luckily they had some gas in stock.  We bumped into 3 other hikers at the shop who had also been staying at the Budget Inn and had another good chat with them again before leaving.  Joyce kindly picked us up again from outside the shop at 10:15 to shuttle us back the 11 miles to Dicks Creek Gap to rejoin the AT. We took a photo of her at the gap and she took one of both of us together, ( I look frozen! )by the time we started hiking it was 10:45.

Hiawassee sits in a really picturesque valley and on the edge of a beautiful large lake, popular with water sports in the summer apparently.

It was much colder today, with a cloudy start.  A cold spell was forecast for today and tomorrow with temperatures around -2°C/28°F during the day, but remaining sunny and dry.  It's due to get warmer again by the weekend.
Our packs laden with new food supplies seemed really heavy, especially on the uphill of which there was a lot today.  Dicks Creek Gap was at a fairly low elevation , 2675 ft, yesterday we did a lot of downhill today it was back up again!
We passed two other hikers, Penguin Man and Cannonball near Plumorchard Gap Shelter and stopped briefly for a chat. We passed a massive tree that had fallen over in strong winds we presume and entered the Southern Nantahala Wilderness area. We continued gradually uphill until we reached the Georgia/North Carolina boarder. Wow we're in a new State! 1 down - 13 more to go!!

The afternoon turned out lovely and sunny again but cold in the wind.
Just after the border we reached Bly Gap where there was an interesting old twisted tree. The uphill from Bly Gap to Couthouse Bald (4666ft) the highest point on the trail so far, was a toughie especially with our heavier packs.  From the summit it was downhill for a bit to Sassafras Gap before another climb up to Muskrat Creek shelter at 4580ft, where we arrived at 5pm - the highest elevation we've camped at and the coldest! There are 4 other hikers here tonight, 2 section hikers and 2 thru hikers.

It was getting cold so we set up our tent straight away and cooked in the tent porch wrapped in our sleeping bags to keep warm!  We were tucked up in bed, plenty warm enough in our layered sleeping bag system, for 6.30pm!  When it's this cold that's all you can do to keep warm, makes for a long night though.   When there's no wind the forest is silent and still during the night.  I expected there to be more nocturnal activity in the woods, maybe it's too cold even for the wildlife. We've spent a fair bit of time camping in jungle environments in the past where nature is noisy in the night. The only noise's we heard last night were aircraft, I think we were camping right underneath a flight path!
We woke up early at 6.30 just as it was starting to get light, we'd been lying down for long enough.  Our water bag was frozen so we were melting ice for tea & coffee!