Date: 2003-03-05
From: old gooch mountain shelter

To: US 19 and 129 - neels gap (walasi-yi center)
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: overcast clouds

day 4we left last with mario waking us up with his headlamp and whisper lite (whisper my you know what) before the crack of dawn. good thing too, because java and i were gonna aim for neels gap that day, a whopping 13 or so miles away (hey, it was whopping for those days). besides it gave us a chance to talk with mario some more and say our goodbyes and everything.after cooking breakfast mario dumped out his fuel into the fire pit, seeing how he wasn't gonna need it anymore, and we had a nice morning fire. i think the only one that i ever had on the trail. so we have our breakfasts, and i'm holding everyone up cause i've managed to put on and lace up my boots without putting my insoles back in them. so i take care of that deal and we head out. we say bye to mario at the side trail-AT junction and java and i head north. java tells me how his foot has been hurting him and how he's been walking with his sandals a lot. his foot is hurting right now so he takes off his boots and puts on his sandals, and i realize that people can get hurt out here. whether in subtle or not so subtle ways. we get goin'.i manage to keep up with java for about 4 or so miles, but i just cannot do it all the way like this. his pack is probably close to 15 lbs lighter than mine and i'm just burning my self up trying to keep pace. so we break up and i tell him that i'll see him at walasi-yi sometime tonight. i then walk solo for the next few miles or so until i run into a few guys taking photos at this great view. we introduce each other and i hike out with them. one of the guys is aiming for walasi-yi as well so we decide to push together. this is brendan who'd later be known as "sugardaddy." he too is a solo hiker and has just hooked up with these two guys who are hiking together just this morning. after a bit the two other fellas decide to take a snack break and sugardaddy and i keep going. we got miles to crush.so we walk and walk all the while having tangent coversations about everything. that whole "getting to know you" process. we're having a good time and after a while the conversation naturally turns to food. pizza in particular. so here we are with about 8 or so miles to go and we just can't stop talking about pizza and the warm bed that we'll be sleeping in, the hot, hot shower that we'll be taking (not together of course, or maybe...just kidding), the phone calls we'll be making and everything else. we finally make it to the side-trail junction leading to wood's hole shelter and decide that yes, we can make it. so we keep going and finally get to blood mountain. i'm a little tired at this point so i'm resting pretty much at every switchback, but brendan is moving. man, something's lit a fire under his ass. i finally catch up to him at the gorgeous summit and we congrat each other on our first real summit (yes, blood mountain was a real summit back in those days). we check out the shelter and register, sign in, and take photos on the rock overhang just right beside the shelter. it's absolutely beautiful. for the first time in my life i'm standing above the clouds. they're gorgeous. just little puff balls cruising by.on the summit we also meet an older couple named gramps and scamps who place these little stickers by their register entries that have a photo of them. pretty cool but also inviting to pranksters, as i later noticed when i saw some of their stickers grossly, hideously, inhumanely disfigured. someone (oh god, it almost brings me to tears just thinking about it) had blackened their teeth. oh, the horror! but wait just a second, i know you may be thinking that it was me cause i'm joking about it, but it really wasn't. anyways, they seemed like a nice enough couple and we walked with them for a bit down the bald north face of blood mountain, and then we put the after burners on. we wanted pizza.sooner than later we notice something to our left. something that surprisingly has become so foreign to us in just a matter of days. there's this flat black stretch of land to our left with a double-yellow strip running down its center. well, we're absolutely speeding up with joy. we just wanna run to this strange yet familiar man-made creation and do the "i love you" to it, if you know what i mean? well not together at least. that may just be a little too much to handle. so we make it to the road and notice the green metal sign that they place at trail-road crossings. you know, the one with the two hikers on it. so brendan has the ingenious idea (oh, bless that guys imagination) to pose just like the sign. so we proceed and continue, pose, shoot, and cross the street to civilization. now here it gets interesting.as we're crossing the street we notice a whole mob of people in the parking lot and a large marjority seem to be looking straight at us. now i'm thinking, well we haven't done anything wrong yet, so what's going on. well, those stares also had smiles attached to them. as soon as we get to the crowd we start talking to the folks there and they start offering us what else, but pizza. they have boxes of it and of course they would love to share some of it with us. we do our duty and demolish two boxes right then and there. nah, just a couple of slices. but some of these people turn out to be who else, but the awesome miss janet and another one of my favorite people "girl next door" who hiked the trail last year. now i didn't know these people before hand and we barely talked that day, but as the adventure continues they become some of my favorites.we find out that these folks are waiting for a guy named "crumbsnatcher," who i'd much, much later on meet. crumbsnatcher is hiking the AT for his second time and it just so happens to be his birthday today. so they'd gathered up the forces, bought some food and beer and would we like to join them to wood's hole shelter for a big party? well, everything was "yes, yes, yes" until that point. we looked at each other and said "wood's hole shelter," nah. yes, we answered with a negative, but a very grateful negative. we thanked them for the invitation and the pizza, but we explained that we had our hearts set on a shower and a bed. so we said goodbye, signed in for the last two bunks and went into the hostel. what a sight....just a bunch of fellow thru-hikers everywhere. i go into the bunk room and it looks like several packs have exploded. people are just talking about losing weight like crazy. they're asking for each other's opinions on what to drop and what to keep, and after my shower, i join right in with them. i have got to drop some weight. i love this trail so far, but if i'm gonna make it i've got to be comfortable. so i start getting rid of all sorts of things and even some food. (i think i started with something like 8 days of food). i finish up that task and the pizza we've ordered arrives. i eat what is one of the best pizzas i think i've ever had and some of us talk till late. finally i go into the bunkroom where most everyone is struggling to sleep. apparently there's a bear in the bunkroom. yes, a bear! oh, wait, that's another movie. anyways, there's this fairly large guy that they call "snuffalufugus," (spelling?) who's literally vibrating the walls with his snores. i go in, take out my mattress and turn right back around. there's no way i'm partaking of this, so i position my self right outside in the common room.soon enough other people join me and after a few minutes the floor space has been taken up. we can still here snuff but it's still a lot better out here. we talk and joke for a while and then out of the blue we start hearing a cat meowing. the next morning we come to find out that some lady's cat was stuck in the vent system. i had a great night that night. slept like a champ, met some new faces, saw poptart who i hadn't seen since hawk mountain shelter, saw java, and had my first hostel experience. booya!