Date: 2012-04-14
From: Neel Gap

To: Blue Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: few clouds

Last night we stayed at Neels Gap. When we had arrived the bunkhouse was filling up fast. I believe it sleeps 16 and they even had a couple on the floor due to accidently overbooking. We decided to tent instead as I prefer the outdoors to a stuffy hiker packed room. Big Rig purchased us showers and sodas upon our arrival. WONDERFUL trail magic in form of a meal provided by a local church. Lasagna, mac-n-cheese, salad, stew and desserts were some of the food layout for the hikers. We were encouraged to go back for seconds and we obliged. We met many other hikers including Sparky Dave from Yardley and two other hikers from Philadelphia. Thunderfoot was there, but limping as he had tweaked his knee somewhere before the summit of Blood Mountain. He is planning a zero day to rest tomorrow. After eating I went in to resupply my food. Behind the counter was Baltimore Jack. I met him a few times previously. Once at the 2011 Billville Hiker Feed in Duncannon, also at the ALDHA Gathering in North Adams, MA. He was definitely less than friendly and very curt. I did hear him mumble something about being short handed. I guess before branding him Grumpy Jack, I need to realize that everyone has bad days. After showering it was getting dark. I was ready for bed after the 15+ mile day. By the way, a 15+ mile day walking at home in the local park is not necessarily easy, but it is not like a 15 mile day in this terrain!We set up camp right behind Mt Crossings by the picnic table and outlook. It was not the best site but our options were limited at this point. After going to bed, I heard Big Rig having issues with his tent. He has a fairly slippery floor in his Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo and had pitched it on a bit of an incline. It was fine until he got in and his pad/bag started sliding down to the bottom of the tent. He had to repitch it. I offered to help but he declined. Good Times. Good Times.I realized in the morning how dehydrated I was. For convenience sake, I keep a 'pee' bottle in my tent so I do not have to get my shoes on and crawl out into the cold to do my business. Needless to say, the color in the bottle that I saw did not look healthy. I thought about yesterday and realized that I only urinated once during the whole day of hiking. I think I found out one of the reasons that my body is struggling so. I will be making a real effort to hydrate as much as possible from this point on. Big Rig keeps fighting with his phlegm issues. I am not sure who is winning.Trail Magic #3. Pete is a local who was hiking southbound. He inquired if we were thru hikers and offered us an orange and apple. We didn't want to be greedy so we decided to take the orange and split it when we reached the top of the ascent. Thanks again Pete! It hit the spot.Met Josh and John(?) from AL section hiking before leaving Neels Gap. We also met two older women who were hiking with bear bells on. Maybe that's why I can't get that 'Sleigh Bells Ring' Christmas song out of my head.When we were walking through a section with some fresh light green ground growth coming out of a lot of dead leaves we heard the leaves rustling around us. After closer inspection we saw what must have been hundreds of baby grasshoppers jumping all around, neat!We still wanted to set ourselves up to get into Hiawassee early in the day to give us extra town time before Big Rig has to get off the trail to fly home. Ideally, I should have penciled in another two days (or one more if we didn't do the approach trail) to get to Hiawassee to allow for a more leisurely stroll. We definitely are pushing.I started drinking more water and noticed myself sweating now. Also, bathroom breaks are more frequent. More than likely connected, I also started hiking with a stronger pace. Onward to Blue Mt Shelter.