Day: 029
Date: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Start: Approaching Moreland Gap Shelter (AT Mile 412.5)
Finish: Dennis Cove (AT Mile 420.1)
Daily Kilometres: 12.8
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 711.8
Weather: Cool to mild, breezy and partly sunny.
Accommodation: Cabin
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts and burritos
Lunch: Pizza
Dinner: Hamburger & fries/Chicken pieces & fries, peach pie & tapioca pudding
Aches: None to speak of.
Highlight: A “nero” (near zero) day spent relaxing, chatting to other hikers, and doing the usual chores - laundry, resupply, showers and email - in the beautiful setting of the Black Bear Resort in Dennis Cove with a stream right behind our cabin and a deck overlooking it.
Lowlight: None really.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We woke early and were walking by 6:30am, even though we only had 7 miles to our booked cabin at the Black Bear Resort. The trail followed a ridge at around 3,000’ for the first hour or so on a cool morning with the usual tree-filtered views to the nearby hazy mountains. There were plenty of short sharp ups and downs, but the trail was mostly not technical and we made good time, seeing a few other hikers along the way, some still camped and others walking. At our breakfast break after a couple of hours we were joined by a two hikers, one of whom was boasting about how many miles he had been doing the last few days. He was a little quieter after Julie asked him when he started the trail and it turned out to be four or five days before us. The other hiker, a South African, was suffering from some bad blisters, perhaps the consequence of their last few days of aggressive hiking.
The last hour or so saw a steady descent down to Dennis Cove Road, with the last part through a meadow and past the ruins of an old timber cabin. From the trailhead we had a walk of about 0.6 of a mile along the road through the pretty valley following an attractive boulder-strewn stream. The properties well-kept and the road was quiet. About half-way to the Resort a golf buggy came the other way transporting a couple of hikers down to the trailhead. By the time the buggy made its return journey we were about 50 yards from the Resort so declined the offered lift.
We checked in and had a second breakfast of microwaved burritos then spent the rest of the day chatting to the few other hikers here, including “Tassie” the lady from Tasmania, and doing some admin. One hiker, already in residence for a few days, has his leg elevated and wrapped in ice dealing with shin splints, or maybe a stress fracture. We feel bad for him, as a stress fracture will be a showstopper for his AT hike.
In the evening, we took advantage of a scheduled shuttle run, along with about ten other hikers, to the town of Elizabethtown, about 12 miles away, where we had dinner at a sports bar and bought our supplies for the next three days at the nearby Walmart in the allotted 90 minutes the shuttle was there. Lots of interesting discussion in the van about bears, the relative merits of hostels, distances hiked, etc.
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