Date: 2005-03-16
From: Blood Mountain Cabins (Neels Gap)

To: Blood Mountain Cabins (Neels Gap)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Ahh, the zero day. How shall I start? Well we wake relatively late andhead to teh cabin headquarters for some shopping, up picked up somehomemade ¢moonshine¢ jelly to send to my dad for his birthday. Then wetook off to the outfitters for some retrofitting. I knew before we gotinto town that I would need to replace my air-leaking thermarest that hadsomehow developed an undetectable leak on the first day, leaving me tosleep on a flat pad. We browsed around a bit and decided to have thefolks at the outfitter do a ¢shake down¢ on our packs. I have to say thatWinton(sp?) who runs the place is an incredibly cool guy, full of advice.So he examines everything im y pack, and I wait to hear the final verdict.I had heard stories of people sending home pounds of gear, and even senlarge piles in other folk¢s shakedowns. So the moment of truth, whatextra stuff do I have? A fork.Tha¢s right, of all my gear the ONLY thing that he thinks is extra andneedless on the treial is a freakin¢ fork. SO how else to save weight? Imean really. I¢ve got to be ablet o go lower, and then he tells me thatmy pack itself¢¦empty¢¦weighs around 6 pounds. Funny, the foks at REIneglected to mention that. So it was time for a new pack and MountainCrossings ast Walasi-Yi is one of the only (I think two) places that sellsthe ULA-P2: a 2.5 pound, 4000 cubic inch pack that is a favorite amongthru-hikers. Well, I bite the bullet and accept that I¢ll have to tradepacks to save weight, and Winton fits me for the pack, and voila, I¢m in anew pack.If I didn¢t mention it, I really need some camp shoes, but unfortunatelyit appears that crocs and waldies are a rare commodity due to some crazybuyout of the manufacturer, so I¢ll have to rough it for a while.Actually, I take that back. Jake raided the hiker box and found some flipflops that will work, oh well, better than nothing. So I tell the guy atMountain crossings that I need some insoles and that I have a blister (didI mention I got my first blister?) and he says ¢Let¢s make sure that yourshoes fit alright first¢. Now I know to some this sounds likesalesmanship, but this guy doesn¢t seem to be in it for the dollar, as Ihad sen him give advice not to buy his products before, so I believe him,and he fits me for a lighter-weight shoe and man can I tell a difference.So far REI has been a bit disappointing in the ¢yeah this gear will workfor your thru-hike¢ department. Anyway, I end up with new shoes,backpack, insoloes, and oh yeah, a Lexan spork. So I¢m retrofitted forthe day. Good news too, it appears since I only recently purchased myGregory pack, I can even return it to REI, so that helps to offset thecosts of my re-gearing. It looks like Neel¢s gap is going to be a funplace. Longhaul and some other familiar faces have shown up, includingthe niblets.This seems party worthy, we manage to convince Sarah, one of the nibletsto get ahold of her car. I head with the niblets to some town that hasbeer, grab a few 6 packs, and we head back to the cabin for somemac&cheese that Jake is preparing meanwhile. Ahh, nothing like mac&cheese, TV, a warm cabin, and the company of some beautiful women tomake a zero day complete.