By the time we woke up, our camp partner had already packed up and left. We decided to sleep as late as we wanted instead of trying to keep a rigid schedule, that way we could get the rest we needed for each day. We ended up going to sleep between 8 and 9 each night and waking up around 6... that would be 9-10 hours of sleep! We got on the trail by 9:30 in the morning and immediately were faced with a climb up Big Spring Mountain. It's not a large climb, at only about 500', but when climbing straight up without warming up, this mountain about killed us. The next real challenge of the day was Whiteoak Mountain. This wasn't a steep or difficult climb, but with the thought of Sassafras Mountain yet to come and having to hike 11.8 miles, we felt exhausted before the day really got under way.

We knew that we had to keep our water bottles filled as much as possible, since we didn't know of any water stops on Sassafras Mountain, so we found a great water stop just before Whiteoak Mountain. We were hoping to go all the way from here to the top of Sassafras Mountain and take a break there for lunch.

We got our first view of Sassafras Mountain on the descent down from Whiteoak Mountain. It didn't look so high from this overlook, but we knew that we still had some elevation drop to go. At the base of Whiteoak Mountain, we came to a very distinct gap, Sassafras Gap, that used to be the old Emory Gap Toll Road. This used to be the only route over the mountains from Pickens but now is all grown over.

The 1000' climb up Sassafras Mountain was very strenuous. Not only was it a steep climb, but there are no switchbacks and really no breaks on the way to the top. We almost ran out of water before we reached the top, and we definitely didn't have enough water for lunch. It took us an hour longer to reach the summit than we expected, and we still had to push on before we could refuel with some much needed food. The top of the mountain was not exactly what we expected. The views were good in all directions, but we had expected more of a "park" for day visitors. What we found was simply a parking area and a few short trails to the overlooks. We felt relatively well for having hiked over 3 mountains before lunch, including the tallest mountain in the entire state of South Carolina.

We found a small trickle of water about 1/2 mile on the descent toward Chimneytop Gap and we took a long lunch break along side of the trail. A group of 4, young backpackers passed us and waved as they passed by; it looked like they had just started their hike and were maybe out for 1 night of camping. Little did we know that we would see them again, much farther down the trail.

After lunch, we had about 6-7 more miles planned before setting up camp at Laurel Fork Gap. We quickly realized that the morning's hike had taken most of our energy for the day and we would have to come up with a contingency plan. A quick glace at the guidebook didn't show any designated campsites, but we decided to push on until we found something that was suitable.

A little less than a mile after the Chimneytop Gap access we found a beautiful campsite just to the left of the trail. It looked like a small plateau set on the side of the mountain with a small stream flowing between the campsite and the trail. There was a fire ring, a water supply and a flat spot for the tent... at that point, that was all that we needed!

So, it was only the end of the 2nd day, and we had already fallen behind our schedule by about 5 miles. We could try to make up some distance on the next day, but we were already scheduled to hike 10.5 on day 3. We went to bed listening to the weather forecast and hoping that the next day would be a little easier