Saturday 3rd May - Wednesday 7th May

Distance covered: 30.5 miles

Miles to finish: 2105.2 miles

After a frustrating descent from Low Gap Shelter we stumbled into Unicoi Gap, a short hitch-hike away from the mock Swiss town of Helen. Soaked to the bone and hungry the agenda was set with one focus in mind- Fast food and lots of it. It wasn’t long before our thumbs had flagged down a ride and we burst into Wendy’s burger joint for a barbarian feed. It soon became apparent that 2nd’s and thirds were to be a common custom and that Story Teller’s ‘walking stomach theory’ was becoming a reality. Once we had eaten Wendy out of house we checked into a motel, the Helendorf Inn. We ended up staying in Helen an extra day as we required fuel for cooking and the hardware shop was closed for business on the Sabbath. During our time in Helen we explored vigorously.

After purchasing the fuel on Monday morning we hitched back out to Unicoi Gap to get back onto the train. We camped at a spot called the Cheese Factory site that eve & to the remaining party’s delight Tom pulled out a six pack of cold beers. Let’s just say it aided the transition of town to woods.

The next two days were pretty challenging incline wise, but we met some characters along the way including ‘macyoda’, ‘woolly’ and ‘nelson’. We then hitched into town for a re supply and some hot food! Our driver was more than amused when he questioned Tom on the difference on hiking in the US to home, tom’ s reply was “not all that differet, especially when you spend the whole day staring at your feet!”.

Our hitch back to the trail was a bit of a disaster though it didn't start that way...the charismatic driver with dyed blue hair was the same from a few days earlier which was a funny coincidence… though his company was appreciated he accidentally brought us back to where we had been three days beforehand. He then informed us that he was in a massive rush and couldn't take is to where we actually wanted to go. Fantastic. A few hours later due to two more hitchhikes we finally got back to where we had been 6 hours earlier.

The following day we crossed the state line into North Carolina – a massive mental achievement, apparently its customary to urinate from one state into the other as you cannot be prosecuted – one longer haired member of the team stepped up. Trail magic was in full swing at a gap ahead when Tom was greeted with a cold Budweiser at one of the gaps, after a horrible climb it made his day!

Paul enjoying the shade of the Rhodedendrons.