Next 36 Miles Of AT
Here’s the original email to Michael detailing our plan for this upcoming Labor Day weekend. Edited and updated to show water sources.
These are my rough notes for what could be the next part of the trek.
I have not looked at the elevations yet but I think the mileage is
doable. If you think about the prior trips we’ve made it to the
endpoints for a day’s hike well before dark so even if we kept our
current speed, there should still be enough daylight to pull these
numbers.
We would park one car at Neels Gap and another at Dicks Creek Gap. I’m
*not* counting the mileage from parking at Neel’s Gap to the breezeway
of the center. We can drop people off at the center and then the
driver can walk the extra half mile. I’ve noted where water is
available. I did not count “seasonal streams” as water since we’ve
learned our lesson on that. I was going to come up with a 3-day plan B
but I like this Plan A so much I didn’t feel like it and I think it
would be harder to pull off. At the end of this trek we’ll be just 8.4
miles from the state line. I could see that being another weekend trip
that lazily crosses the border (Dicks Gap to Plumorchard Gap Shelter,
and then Plumorchard Gap Shelter to ??? somewhere in NC! Didn’t
research this much).
30.4 Neels Gap
33.2 Rock Spring Top (water)
37.0 paved Hwy 348 (water)
41.4 Low Gap (shelter, water)
48.4 spring (water)
50.7 Unicoi Gap, Hwy 76 (tent site at 49.5, water will be a problem
here. Fill up at 48.4)
54.2 Cheese Factory Site, unpaved FS 79 (water)
56.0 Tray Mountain Shelter (water)
60.5 Sassafras Gap (tent site, water)
61.3 Addis Gap, gated FS fire road, unpaved FS 26 (water)
66.5 Dicks Creek Gap, Hwy 76 (parking available, see
http://hike-usa.com/at-georgia/atgeorgia-dickscreekgap.htm)
74.9 GA-NC state line.
Plan A:
——-
Friday Aug 29 – Monday Sept 1
(4 days)
Day 1 – Neels Gap to Low Gap Shelter (11 miles, 3.7 of this is listed
as “one of the easiest sections of the entire AT”)
Day 2 – Low Gap to Unicoi Gap (9.3 miles)
Day 3 – Unicoi Gap to Sassafras Gap (9.8 miles)
Day 4 – Sassafras Gap to Dicks Creek Gap (6 miles)
Thrash this against your knowledge of the trail and let me know what
you think (especially about water). Let’s finish this.
