GA Appalachian Trail - Section 12 - Dicks Creek Gap to Unicoi Gap

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/29/2017	16.9 miles	10 hours

Map and Guide Book: Appalachian Trail Conservancy, North Carolina-Georgia

Directions: Unicoi Gap to Dicks Creek Gap


We still felt pretty good after a 14 mile hike yesterday. We originally had planned to split today's hike up into a 4 mile hike and a 13 mile hike. Since I didn't know how my hip would be feeling, hiking more than 14 miles seemed too ambitious. But, my hip was feeling good and the weather was good, so we decided to go for a longer day, in order to take a day off later on a rainy day. Today's hike ended up being exhausting. We did okay yesterday, but I think two long days in a row just made today hard. It was warm and humid out. My hip still felt okay, I just felt out of shape.

We started out going up Rocky Mountain. There was no easy flat warmup. Instead it was a 1.3 mile climb with 1,068' ascent. I found this section really tiring. Later on we hiked up Tray Mountain. I didn't find this as bad. The climb seemed more gradual and we were rewarded with views at the top. We took a break at the top for soup. Then more ups and downs. It doesn't feel like there are ridges in Georgia. It's either up or down. Or flat, but not on a ridge. Whenever we reach a gap, we know we're headed up. We did take a .1 mile side trail to a view point, which was worth the trip. Today we needed more water than we carried (2 liters for me, 3 for Glen). We went down to a stream to filter some. We are such newbies. We hiked down with our packs on. Dumb! We saw a couple others going down to filter. They just left their packs on the trail and ran downhill to the stream. Why carry the weight of your backpack steeply downhill and then back up with more pounds of water?

Today I did use Strava to track our miles. We had nearly 5,000 feet elevation gain. It took us nearly 10 hours. By the end, I was just dragging. Today was much slower than the 2 to 2.3 mph we have been averaging before.

Fritos never get old

Worth the side trip. A really nice place to take a break.

Pooped.