Date: 2019-03-26
From: Neel Gap, Your Home in the Woods B&B

To: Blue Mountain shelter
Miles today: 18.8
Weather: light rain

A four-star breakfast, double trail magic and a soggy end to the day. I wake up several times in the so-soft and warm bed at Your Home in the Woods B&B. The sun doesn't rise til after 7 so I've no idea what time it is. Finally I get up and it's 6am. Grisu and Brantley are soon up as well. Looks like Brantley may take his old nickname of Bluntley, which you can work out for yourself! I work idly and futilely on a 1500-piece crossword puzzle Paul and Bonnie's grandchildren gave them (not sure they like their grandparents?) while they whip up a gourmet breakfast for us. Poached eggs with dill and feta, lemon ricotta pancakes, sausages, and homemade scones. One of the fanciest and tastiest breakfasts I've ever had, let alone on the trail! Paul was a teacher and principal of a private school in Atlanta for 44 years. He's a Virginia native while Bonnie's from Maine, but both decided the mild winters of North Georgia were a better place to open their B&B than the short season in Maine.Paul drops us back at Neel Gap and hands out leftover scones to hikers. I buy new trekking pole tips at Mountain Crossings and spend the next half hour banging, wrenching, and pulling the old tips off. Grisu points out they have hot water in the outfitters and once I soak the more stubborn one I get both tips off. They have 1100 miles on them - I got them in Killington so they have 500 miles from there to Katahdin, all of Virginia, and more. The carbide tips disappeared long ago, and the hard plastic shafts are worn down to nubs. I can immediately feel the difference in how the new ones bite the ground. An important repair considering how many times these poles have saved my butt.I bump into my shuttle guy Bret Eady on the way out the door. He seems to be everywhere in North Georgia all the time. I start to rave about Paul and Bonnie but he's already a convert and gives out their card all the time.The six mile hike to Tesnatee Gap is fogbound. I'm sure Levelland Mountain, Wolf Laurel Top, and Cowrock Mountain have wonderful views but this morning I get to focus on the twenty yards of trees, leaves, and duff nearest the trail. I pass Papa Bear, a 72-year-old who's fallen way behind his two teenage grandchildren. This is their second annual section hike and they are headed for the North Carolina border.  Down in the gap I find a trail magic spread hosted by an Atlanta Baptist church. King Tut and Georgia Duck are handing out coffee, hot chocolate, donuts, soda and more. But the best part is the chairs. The sun comes out to warm us up. And I'm given a handmade knit cap with a white blaze on the side courtesy of the church's crochet club. Thank you ladies! It's very warm!A dozen or so hikers appear while I'm there. Very popular is a massage roller which three twenty-something guys - Joe, Nikita, and a large bearded fellow from Austin - use to tenderize their painful knee, IT band, and ankle. I feel less old seeing these young guys laid low, and lucky I have no chronic pain to deal with. Other than sore feet thanks to my aging shoes.It takes a great effort to separate myself from my chair, but eventually I climb over Wildcat Mountain. Less than a mile later at Hogpen Gap there's another trail magic spread!Four guys from a Bible study group - Bobby, Steven, Danny and Philip (I probably got three of those names correct) have minestrone soup (with fresh possum they joke), pasta salad, hard-boiled eggs, hot tea, soda, and more. I'm glad I only nibbled at the last one because the soup and pasta salad are delicious!Sadly every day will not be such a rolling feast, and I reluctantly take my leave again. The sun has come out as I make my way over gentle terrain to Low Gap. Here virtually everyone from Neel Gap, including all my fellow trail magic guests, are stopping and there are about twenty people gathered in the shelter and the picnic table next to it. I take a restroom break and move on after chatting with a forty-something guy named ZigZag.A steady rain falls over the seven miles to Blue Mountain shelter. I have to christen my rain mitts and don my already tattered poncho to avoid a soaking from the relentless shower. It'll be in the thirties tonight so staying dry is paramount. I meet an Asian family of four along the way who are nearing the end of a fifty mile section from Springer. I ask how it's been and the mom smiles and says "Well, we haven't killed each other yet!" Still, they seem in good spirits considering the weather and how long they've been out.The rain continues without pause. The last couple miles are very rocky and slick with mud along a steep sidehill.Finally I spy the shelter high on a hill through the fog, like a scene out of a Steven King novel. There's only one tent pitched so my hopes of getting a dry shelter spot rise, but are quickly dashed when I stumble into eight shelter-dwellers lounging about under the roof. Oh well! I "dry-pitch" the tent, putting the rainfly on first then hooking the inner tent onto the pole skeleton underneath to keep it dry. I head to the shelter cover to make hot tea and a noodle dinner with roasted-tomato-flavored tuna thrown in. There are four section hikers from Ohio. They need to get off early at the road two miles away because one of them has gotten sick. Another of them has a flask of homemade moonshine (I guess that's redundant). The other four are thruhikers. One did 1700 miles of the AT in 2016 and is back to try again, from the beginning of course! Another, Unicef, is an occasional peakbagger and literacy teacher from Boulder. He got his name by accepting food donations from everyone, and worries it might be offensive. No, I've heard some offensive trail names and that ain't one of them! He started the Approach Trail two hours before me so we seem to have a similar pace. The first such person I've run into.I retire early to the tent after hanging my food bag in the rain. The bear cables are hopelessly jerry-rigged so I use my own line to hoist it up a tree.Some days are gonna be wet. Tomorrow will be better.