Date: 2013-03-02
From: Gooch Mountain Shelter

To: Lance Creek
Miles today: 8.5
Weather: broken clouds

By the time I had made breakfast, packed up my tent and broke camp, it was about 9:15 AM that I left the Gooch Mountain Shelter area. I hiked a good portion of the day with a fellow Thru Hiker whose Trail name is Lucky. He is from Tennessee and trained as a deep sea diver. After he summits Katahdin in Maine, he plans to work down around Florida and the Gulf. When we arrived at Woody Gap, the wind was so strong and cold that we had to utilize the leeward side of a restroom located at the Gap to try to break the wind enough to eat a lunch. There was a Trail Angel (folks that bring food, assistance or just plain encouragement) at the Gap named ¢Fresh Ground¢ that offered coffee as well as encouragement. After a quick bite to eat, it was nice to get back on the Trail and in the woods just to get some relief from the strong, cold wind.While hiking with Lucky, I discovered that one of the hikers at last night¢s campfire was a young man from Russia. He had started the Trail in blue jeans. Due to the challenges of weather changes and moisture, cotton fabric is not a good choice when the prospects of becoming cold and wet are very real. Someone at the camp actually gave him a pair of hiking pants to use on the condition that when he summits Katahdin in Maine, he puts his jeans back on and has his picture taken. Lucky was apparently the one who gave this fellow the Trail name of ¢Skinny Jeans¢ and the young man seemed to readily accept the moniker. I had arrived at a primitive campsite area called Lance Creek around 2:00 PM and was faced with the decision to set up camp or press onward. There was a section of Trail between Jarrard Gap and Neel Gap that required the use of hard shell bear canisters as the bears supposedly get active around March 1. I did not choose to carry the extra weight of the canister and planned to hike though the approximately 5 mile stretch. At this point, however, such a hike would require another day in which my total mileage for the day would be about 15 miles. I did not want to ¢burn out¢ or get injured so early on the Trail, so I opted to camp after going only a little over 8 miles for the day. I was moderately distressed as I had apparently lost my pen along the Trail at some point. I had planned to go ¢old school¢, keep a pen and paper journal, and then mail the entries to my wife when I get to a Trail town so that she could update my on line journal. A lost pen would make this very difficult as I only had one pen (another attempt at weight savings). Later in the afternoon, a brother and sister team from New Jersey came along to the campsite. The brother went by the Trail name ¢Tarzan¢ and he appeared to be of recent post high school age. His parents insisted that he must have someone to go on the Trail with him, so his sister Ashley accompanied him. They are a pretty good team and real nice. As a matter of fact, they happened to mention that they found a pen on the Trail and after describing it, we figured out that the pen was, in fact, the one that I had lost and they returned it to me. What are the chances of that being mere coincidence?Today¢s hike had both beautiful views and snow. I went to bed about 7:30 PM.