It was tricky to drag myself away from Tesnatee Gap. I was made to feel welcome, and people were feeding me. Several other hikers had arrived, and we were treated like superheroes, so iconic has the trail become. But I still had quite a schlep to Low Gap Shelter and the weather was looking unpromising. While rain threatened for the remaining five-and-a-bit miles, it didn’t actually start until I arrived, and—thankfully—had put up my tent. I had passed the blue-blazed path down to Whitley Gap Shelter. Stopping at this point would have made it a seven-mile day, but I couldn’t bear the thought of a shelter that was about a mile and a quarter from the main trail. When you have about 2,200 miles to hike, an extra couple of miles as a detour is irrationally unwelcome.

It was a wet night and one that reiterated the fact that I hadn’t properly embraced the concept of a flat tenting spot. Another epic fail on that score had me sliding around all night again. I also learned that coming into regular contact with the walls of my tent tended to dampen my quilt.

The rain stuck around for most of the night and the following day, demanding that worst of all activities: packing up in the rain. Every morning, I would be specially grateful if I woke without the pitter-patter of raindrops on my tent. To be fair, this was normally the case. At Low Gap Shelter, however, there was little doubt that I was going to be disappointed from the time I woke in the middle of the night, since it was pouring as if Noah was in the vicinity. The rain let up only marginally, so it turned out to be one of those miserable mornings that made hiking so difficult.

My trifecta of awfulness included the following: my pack and its contents were damp, I had to wear wet-weather gear in the knowledge that there would be nothing dry to put on when I got to my destination, and the path became dangerously slippery. Fail, fail, and fail. My biggest problem with wet-weather gear was that I tended to heat up dramatically, then sweat from the inside. Also, after about 30 minutes of heavy rain, my gear lived up to its name by sharing the wetness with me. I’m sure the jacket was designated as waterproof, but I didn’t meet anybody who had a jacket that would keep the rain out for more than 30 or 40 minutes. As a consequence, liquid was eventually assaulting me from two directions.

I was hiking with Sam, whom I had bumped into while he was turning blue at Woody Gap. We were heading for an unplanned break at Unicoi Gap. We needed to dry out, so from there we were getting a shuttle into Helen. The town was about nine miles east of the crossing and we had booked a motel. We had a steady climb all day, crossing Blue Mountain at almost exactly 4,000 feet, before descending sharply for just shy of two miles down to under 3,000 feet into Unicoi Gap.

These wet days were equally unrewarding from a vista perspective. However, to complain about this would have been a touch churlish, because we had so far had sun for a good deal of our first 50 miles.

Helen was going to be my first real town, though I soon learned to manage expectations in that regard. The town is actually referred to as a city, in White County, Georgia, on the Chattahoochee River, with a population of just over 500 people. The most remarkable thing about Helen, however, is that it is built as a Bavarian Alps replica town, thankfully without Germans. Having been to the Bavarian Alps in my time, I can confidently report that this is nothing like a German town. The whole place looks like something Disney would have built had Hitler won the Second World War. For my British friends, think the London pub in Disney’s Epcot Center and you’ll get my drift.

The motel was one of those unattractive, dark-carpeted places with depressing furniture that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Hitchcock’s Psycho—apart from the Indian guy at the front desk. Nonetheless, Sam and I were grateful to hang up our wet stuff and get some laundry done. We then showered and met up with another young guy, Jay (who was eventually named Beans a hundred or so miles later), at Monday’s Pub. I made the error of shaving my head in the shower, a process that took about 45 minutes, and cost me about a pint of blood. After that, I vowed to either let my hair grow or get somebody else to shave my head. I looked like I could have auditioned for a zombie movie.

At Monday’s, we ordered the biggest burger we could wrap our jaws around, washing it down with several steins of beer. There was an excellent live band and, conversation being more or less impossible, we watched the locals strutting their stuff. And what stuff they had. Monday’s was clearly the local meeting place for the unemployable and single. Several 50-year-old women giggled uncontrollably, lasciviously eying the table of Helen’s most eligible bachelors across the room.

There were a few unfulfilled rendezvous, but everything paled in comparison to the seven-foot-tall, 60-ish Hell’s Angel and the five-foot-tall pelvis-thruster he was with. Her version of dancing was to push pretty much everything below her waistline his way. This was despite the fact that it came into contact around his knee area. Determining that he’d get more bang for his buck, so to speak, he lifted her off her feet. She then wrapped her legs around his waist, gyrating furiously at him once more. Her actions must have awakened the romantic within him. He suddenly prised her away from his pelvic region, with some difficulty it must be said, then put her on the floor, only to drop to one knee, still several inches taller than her, and, apparently, propose. He clearly hadn’t planned for this moment of overwhelming romance, as there was no ring to be seen. But, in a moment of inspiration, he gallantly removed his cruddy hat from his head, revealing unkempt, long, gray hair in the process—making him look like Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings trilogy—and offered the hat to his lady. I can’t tell you the last time I saw something so romantic but so bizarre in equal measure.

Sam and I were late getting back on the road the following morning. This was partly due to the need to ensure everything was as dry as possible, but mainly because we were reluctant to start another day in the rain. Every surface in our room bore an element of our soggy contents, while our tents had spent the night draped over a railing outside. I often left my gear unattended outside bars or shops, even though there were one or two reported incidents of stealing on the trail. There was a general consensus that hikers respected each other’s gear, so I never feared losing anything. Consequently, even at this early stage, leaving my tent outside was no big deal. Having delayed the start as long as possible, with an unambitious day of nearly six miles ahead of us, we grabbed a shuttle to take us back to Unicoi Gap.

Tray Mountain was our destination, so we had to trudge, muddily, up and down Rocky Mountain to achieve our modest goal. I found it tough enough to climb 1,000 feet in a mile and a quarter, but exponentially more so when rain added itself to the mix. I was stopping to regain my breath at regular intervals, pushing through the burning pain in my thigh muscles all the while. Peaking, then immediately descending, activated the downhill muscles and the difficulty simply shifted its form, though not its severity.

I was using my poles as carefully as I could, picking my way as if through a muddy minefield. There were a few minor slips every now and then to concentrate the mind, but I managed to keep my footing every time. I was able to gingerly make my way down from Rocky Mountain to a short, flatter stretch before the inevitable climb up Tray Mountain. Relaxing for the first time that day, I then made the first of many spectacular falls while walking along flat ground. One moment I was strolling along, the next I had slipped, pirouetted, and ended up on my fleshy backside in the middle of a bush. This turned out to be a well-positioned bush, preventing me from taking an unscheduled slide about 100 feet down the mountain. Once Sam realized that I hadn’t been injured—and that he wouldn’t have to alert Search and Rescue—he roared with laughter before helping me unceremoniously to my feet. It was the first of many tumbles and showed me the inherent danger in every step, so I resolved to pay more attention to the supposedly easy parts of the hike. I can report unequivocally that my extra vigilance made no difference whatsoever to my safety.

Following my fall, Sam and I still had another three mile uphill stretch that would take us to nearly 4,500 feet, then down a short way to Tray Mountain Shelter. By now, the wind and rain were whipping around and the severity increased on the way up. We reached the shelter about two hours later, where it was pretty wild. The trees were blowing about violently, with the rain coming at us horizontally. As usual, the shelter was packed and, while everybody was happy to scooch up to let me in, I didn’t really fancy it. I found a flat spot to set up for the night.

Returning to the shelter, I had to squeeze in after all, since there was no table at this shelter on which to cook. Some enterprising hiker—in an attempt to mitigate the worst of the wind and rain—had located a tarp at the back of the shelter. He triumphantly made a makeshift cover for the front. Unfortunately, it kept flapping back and forth, so it was a little frantic, and doubtless a fire hazard, as I cooked dinner. Despite our close proximity, everybody was so amenable, moving constantly to make room and making sure that everybody got a chance to feed themselves.

I met a Canadian couple at Tray Mountain Shelter who gave me my first feeling of hiker envy. They had a battery-powered inflator for their air pad and I wanted one. I was already tired of blowing my pad up at the end of the day and this was the perfect answer. For some reason, entirely unaccountable to me even now, I hiked the rest of the trip wanting one of these. However, I never bought one, despite many opportunities in the months to come. I can’t explain it, particularly given my penchant for impulse purchases. I guess I was destined to exhaust myself every night in that end-of-the-day, final puff that would complete my tiredness.

With the rain slowly dying down, the wind took up the slack and increased in intensity. The temperature also dropped markedly, so I quickly finished my meal and left the relative safety of the shelter to brave it in my tent. As I said, I had found a flat spot for about the first time, and felt comfortable about the upcoming night. My tent was firmly anchored, nothing was going to roll about, and I had plenty of dry clothing to add to my existing layers. Thinking back to that night, I shudder at my naïveté; I should have squeezed into the shelter. The rain returned, and the temperature plummeted further. I woke at around 3 o’clock, immediately feeling too cold to return to sleep. I pulled on my other pair of socks and put on my fleece, dragging my beanie hat down over my face. I don’t mind admitting that I was afraid that I would be unable to stop my own drastically reducing temperature. All of this was so new to me that I had nothing comparable to measure it against, but I was more concerned than I needed to be. At the time, I had no idea if I would stay safe until the morning, and I was very unnerved by this experience. I managed to fall back to sleep; though by the time I awoke, I was still comparatively cold.

It was a Sunday morning. I had decided that I’d have an 11-mile day and treat myself to a room at the Holiday Inn Express in Hiawassee. A hotel was well above my budget, but I wanted to stay in a proper room with unquestionable sheets, an unsullied shower, and a decent TV with a functioning remote control. The night was also going to be my last in Georgia. I was proud of myself in getting this first real milestone under my belt. I still had the 11 miles to negotiate and, wanting to be on my way with Sam, I made a daft error that taught me a lot about my limits on this hike.