Date: 2015-04-15
From: Past Woody Gap, GA

To: Neel Gap, GA
Miles today: 9.1

Day 3: In a text today Ann suggested staying here. I had been thinking of getting my food box and pushing on rather than making less than 10 miles on the day. But I got here about 1:30 and decided that it would be good to get in out of the rain for a bit. So here I am. And it's supposed to rain few more days yet. The rain sure takes the edge off the hike. I just want to keep pushing on rather than taking breaks to ... what, stand in the rain? My legs feel good. My right knee is sore off and on. One other reason for stopping here was to resupply my ibuprofen and to see if could get a full knee brace to replace the one I have been wearing (which I did buy). Knee region soreness is interesting. Can often be kind of fugitive, as in "only hurts when I'm going downhill" or whatever. For my part, I was wearing the brace just above my kneecap on day 1, and just below it on day 2. Today it was also just below, where the soreness seemed most prevalent. But then sometimes the soreness migrated to above the knee. Hence the desire for fuller support to see what happens then.Also bought a one liter bag for my Sawyer water filter. Well, actually bought three of them, as they come in packages of three. And then immediately sold one of them to another hiker who only wanted one. That's a sort of trail magic, too, to have someone right there when I was wondering what I was going to do with that many water bags. Now I'm aiming at using the two, and keeping the half liter bag that came with the filter as a spare.I could have walked on today rather than stopping here, but 30 miles in 3 days is a good start. There will be time enough for big mile days. Once we're out of the rain, or once the rain passes us by, it will be easier to create my routines for using the hammock.Lots more flowers today including one patch of white trillium that seemed to me to be between a half and a full acre in size. Wonderful!Blood Mountain. One of the places I've been reading about for years (along with this hostel and the outfitter upstairs). Climbing Blood Mountain was long and hard, but I had adopted a slow but steady pace and just chugged along. Coming down the north side was made difficult by the mud and rain but, in all, though it was the biggest climb so far, it clearly wasn't insurmountable. The top, especially reminded me of the mountain tops the AT crosses in New York. Up there in the stone building that is the shelter we are warned against staying in (bears in the area), I took a longish snack break with a few other hikers. The place really lived up to its 'cold and damp' reputation in all the hiking memoirs what with the rain and light fog.There are sixteen hikers in the hostel by my count. Although I was here at 1:30 I was one of the last to get a spot and had to take an upper bunk. This group seems already quieter and more focused than was the group at the shelter the first night. Or maybe three days (or more, for some people) of rain has subdued everyone. There is gear and clothing hung up all over the place. We'll see how well the fans and dehumidifier do at drying things out -- so that we can get them wet again when we step into the woods in the morning. We're suppose to be out by 9:00 so it should be easy enough to get away early.Called home, which was good.