Date: 2010-03-29
From: Gooch Gap

To: Neels Gap
Miles today: 14.2
Weather: clear sky

I will remind all of you that I chose to slack pack Georgia. That means hiking with just a daypack. I had to be back at my job in one month, so any way that I could turn in big miles I had to do. So March 28, 2010 Leigh from the Hiker Hostel drops me off at Gooch Gap, where I had left off the day before. My goal is Neel¢s Gap about 14 miles away. I get out of the van and something very important happens. Leigh points in the right direction. This is important because when you ride winding mountain roads you are not familiar with you think you know which way to go. You don¢t. Listen to the people who do. I would have hiked the wrong way, but Leigh corrected me. Thank you. Some nice hiking to Woody Gap. When I say nice I mean fairly flat and pretty. After Woody Gap I got a real good taste of the ups and downs that I would experience on the trail throughout the state of Georgia.Start at 2,2784 ft. ele. up and down to Woods Hole at 3,600 ft. ele. to Blood Mtn. 4,450 ft. ele. to Neels Gap at 3,125 ft. ele. and think how you would feel at the end of the day. Well okay at the end of the day you are tired and sore and feel great because, you just did it.Between Woody Gap and Blood Mtn. there are the usual ups and downs. The climb up to Blood Mtn. is a good climb through a lot of rhododendron. I use the phrase ¢good climb¢ when it is the highest elevation on the AT in GA. When I arrived at the top it was so foggy the only thing I could photograph were the shelter and the trail itself. Then I started about a two mile descent. The descent is mostly boulders and various rocks and roots. Anyone that has hiked a trail considered to be difficult knows the strain of a long steep ascent. They also know the pain of a long and steep descent. By this time my knees are feeling both. The conditions on the trail are cold and wet. I make it to Neel¢s Gap just a few minutes before Josh from the Hiker Hostel arrived to pick me up.I have done my best to describe the trail today. At the beginning of this journal I made the point that this experience is also about the people. Let us keep in mind that the AT in Georgia presents a challenge to hikers because of the topography and because this is the starting point for most thru-hikers. This is where your body has to adjust to the trail and the truth is that only three things happen; you adjust and continue, you sustain an injury and get off of the trail, you realize that you underestimated the difficulty of the trail and you get off. I watched hikers deal with the blisters, joint pain, and general fatigue the entire time that I was on the trail. I dealt with one type of pain or another from the time I made to the top of Sassafras Mtn. till a week or so after I finished up at Erwin, TN. What really made an impression on me was the look of distress in the female hikers. This was in the first few days of the hike when the Georgia mountains are really taking a toll. The only other time in my life that I had noticed this distressed appearance in women was in basic training while in the Air Force. After the first week I only met a couple of female hikers with the same appearance.