Chattooga River overnight

It's summer, time to get out on the trails. I met up with Sassafras and KP at the Chic-fil-a in Clayton, and we headed down to the HWY 76 bridge to leave our cars, and headed down the forest service road to find the trailhead. Well, it took us a little while, but after a scary creek crossing in the Honda, we finally found the trailhead and began our hike. The hike started out quite nicely, nothing to strenuous, and the weather was fine, but QUICKLY all that changed. It was hot. I mean hot enough to fry an egg on the rocks hot. We all tried to stay hydrated, and took frequent breaks to cool off, but man, the hike really took a toll on us. After about 3 miles, we took a lengthy lunch break by the river so that the dogs could play in the water, and so we could cool off.
After we recuperated, we hit the trail again, hiked another 3 miles and found a sweet camping spot right on the river. When we got to camp, I didn't move until I downed a full liter of water, but even with that, I could tell that it was going to be awhile before I was able to set up camp. The cool thing about this trip was that all 3 of us are hammockers, me and my faithful hennessey, and the other 2 had warbonnets. They set up camp first, but I just couldn't do it yet, after about an hour, I managed to get the hammock up, and I laid down for a bit to cool off. It helped alot, and I was finally able to finish all the camp chores and to just relax for awhile.
For the rest of the evening we had dinner, and just sat and took in all the sounds of the river. It finally started cooling off a bit so that really helped morale alot. It was nice though, just sitting there, watching the river flow, listening to the frogs and crickets, and chatting with 2 new hiking friends. The 3 of us really meshed well and I felt blessed to be in such a place.
I went to bed around 9:30, and didn't use the underquilt under my hammock because I was so hot. I normally listed to my IPOD while trying to go to sleep in the woods, but on this night, I just listened to natures orchestra, and was out in no time flat.
Tuesday morning, we leisurely had breakfast, packed up and broke camp around 9:00, heading just under 5 miles to the cars. Well, this was a tough 5 miles. The elevation wasn't too bad, alot of rolling climbs, but the trail was in horrible condition. There were so many blowdowns on the trail, that made the hike much harder. Several times we couldn't go over them, so we would have to bushwhack around them. It was a tough, tough hike. I think we made it to the cars around noon and ended our hike.
Despite the heat, and trail conditions, I had a wonderful time, Sammy got to play in the river and creeks for 2 days, and I made 2 new friends. Can't wait to get out there again!
You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through- Rosalyn Carter.