Backpacking Gregory's Bald, NC

Location 1: Gregory's Bald, NC
National Park Rd, Twentymile Ranger Station
Location 2: Hillcrest Orchards
9696 Georgia 52, Ellijay, GA
Date: October 2013
Weather: Great
Project: Backpacking
Purpose: Getting some AT, and picking apples.
   

  
Probably the most brutal backpacking trip I have been on to date. I went with OAR again. We parked at a trail head close to the bald and slept there at about 2 am when we finally arrived from Gainesville. I discovered that yoga mats do not make good sleeping mats. 

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     We spend sunup to sundown the next day hiking up the mountains and getting to the bald. We lie sweaty and tired in the long grass for a while. I crack open a corona at the top to celebrate; everyone stares, but I think they are jealous. Gotta toast to the summit! The yoga mat is actually useful for sitting and lying down on. The view is unbeatable and there was lovely forest the whole way up. Later we tie our food up in the trees away from bears and try to get some damp wood lit. We should have brought dry twigs from the top of the bald.  Some guys next to our camp site share their fire and we have an okay time of it, but the small fire is definitely a damper on the afternoon chit chat. I spend at least 3 hours of the night awake because of cold (we had to use the space blankets) and my bear paranoia. I am never sleeping outside of the tent again!

    In the morning I eat peanut butter on bagels and we have a quick descent back to the parking lot. We pass a river where me and another girl take short, freezing baths before the rest of the group catches up to us (they stopped to take about 50 selfies on a bridge). I had just got my underwear on when the fastest boy caught up to us. It felt so good to be clean, I didn't even care.

     On the drive back we got Ethiopian in Atlanta and stopped in Ellijay,Georgia by the highway at one of those u-pick/ country fair kind of places to milk cows, watch a pig race, and pick apples. I got 3 bags full and made enough cobbler and mulligatawny for an army.