Date: 2012-03-07
From: Jarrard Gap

To: Neel's Gap
Miles today: 5.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Woke upa around 3 this morning by my bladder but made the wise decison to role back over knowing it would mean waking up around 5 a sure thing. Success! Woke up again at 4:59am exactly. Got up, saw that Joey was up andmoving too, woke up LeeBob per his request and got packed up to move. It was cold again last night but not as bad as previously because I pitched out of the main wind path and made sure I was on a large pile of duff. I was wearing every stitc of clothing I had still brrrrrrr. I packed super fast and was a little cnfused as to why it was still so dark before my early morning brain clicked and I realized no stars means overcast. Turns out we were surrounded by fog. So after breakfast we lit up the headlamps and got moving. All that moisture in the air collected on the tres and every now and then came down on us in a big wet drop like someone on a cloud was spitting. We had a grea time and knew with so few miles thatwe would soon be in the land of showers, clean clothing, electrcity! Blood mountain turned out t be a really smooth gradual climb up. No views today, just an erie sort of beauty and silence because of the fog. I could tell that it would have been quite the look if it had been clear though. So up was easy but the down was a step knee crunching stair falling adventure. Great work by the trailbuilders though, some impressive and beautiful stairwor that I know must have been a lot of time and hard work. Thank you all for all that you do to maintain the trail. I hae been so impresed. On top of blood there was an awesome rock walled shelter that looked straight out of a fair tale with all the fog. We made it t Neel's around 10:30, go a bunk, took a shower. A glourious fabulous, soul cleaning, dirt washing hot steamy shower. Can you tell I liked it? I discovered there was a hot air hand dryer in the adjourning bathroom so evn had immediatly dry hair. Not haveing brushed in 5 days and only having this tiny littleweak comb it took me forty minutes to deal with the tangled mess on my head. This made the boys laugh. Went into mountain crossing and got a shakedown with the girl there. She sai I was all good and besides ditching an extra pair of panties wouldn't send anything home. I'm one of the few who actually gained weight by buying a silk liner (suppose to add warmth. We"l see.) Got a ground cloth and a lighter pair of gloves. I'll weigh the pack in the morning and see the damage. Also got my spandex(thanks dad!) And food drop. As I'm packing up my stuff one of the male employees was like "what's the damage?". Whenn I said nothing he was like "what? You could ditch this and this and this...." lots of little stuff adding up to under apound. Turns outhe and the girl are daing so they had a cute litte tiff moment.   I'm going to hold onto it for now (remember the trailname? Hoarder by nature). And reconsider when I get to an actual post office. Some thing were definently on the gender divide line and it was one of those, "do you need that?" And us girls going "YES!" Also just going to point out that we need to carry a lot more tp. So some people lost a good 20 pounds from their packs. Joey ended up sending a good 20 pounds worth of food up the trail and they told him he has bl enough fuel to make it to maine. I'm in love with the old historical building and spent some time just examining it and appreciating it's beauty. Its an all stone complex and the trail actually runs through it's archway. I would love to live in a building like this. The hostel/ bunkhouse is run by an old thruhiker named pirate with a real quirky sense of humor. The whole place is decorated like a crss between a hallowen party and a old man's attic. If that man was a collector of weird things in bottles and gimmicky toys. I loved it. Can't wait to share photos. There are two live in cats at the hostel which was bad for everyone wo was allergic but I was loving all over them. So glad I stopped and am relaxing in a sofa chair a large pile of purring fur on my lap talking with good people.I also learned today that they've added four milesz to the trail since my 2011 guidebook was published so all the miles on mine are off from those with the 2012 additon. This also means that I did an extra mile and a half somewhere over the last few days. Ha well I guess that explains why some of those miles semed so darn long. Tere's not enough change to make me get a new book so I'm just going to be in for some surprises.