Date: 2017-11-09
From: Low Gap shelter

To: Lance Creek campground
Miles today: 19.8
Weather: overcast clouds

Blood Mountain definitely has a reputation on the AT, although that reputation tends to be diametrically opposite for nobos and sobos.For nobos, who have not yet hiked 30 miles in total on the trail and are carrying too much stuff all while still getting their trail legs, Blood Mountain is the first really big hill on their way to Maine. One of the cruel corollaries of getting trail fit is that after the first day on trail, the pain gets worse for a week or so before it gets better. For us, though, Blood Mountain is barely consequential other than to remind us of the times back in Maine when we'd look on in wonder at nobos flying past on 30-mile days. Today's cruisy climb up the mountain is proof of just how far we've come, physiologically and geographically, since then.We had a hint at the pain nobos are going through on and immediately after Blood Mountain when we hiked to Mountain Crossings, an outfitter and hostel at Neels Gap. This is the first place most nobos resupply on the trail and it's famous for the place for epic pack shakedowns, where people dump huge amounts of extraneous stuff in the hope of resurrecting their thru-hiking aspirations. Lots of disgruntled and defeated hikers also get off here.Foot problems are also rife, which is why people don't just throw away their traitorous shoes but tie the laces together and hurl them over the boughs of a substantial tree directly outside Mountain Crossings. There must be well over 100 pairs of shoes on that tree.It was still cold and damp when we arrived in late morning. Nine, who has been an on-again off-again member of the Second Breakfast Club, had fallen off the pace a little amid a series of health difficulties which would have ended almost anyone else's thru-hike. But she's clearly made of sterner stuff than almost anyone else out on the trail this year and stayed at the hostel here to wait for Packaged Meat so they could do the final miles to Springer together. They'd met because both were wannabe sobos from Ohio and did a bunch of training hikes together and headed into the 100 mile wilderness on the same day after us.The difference between Mountain Crossings and Top of Georgia hostels couldn't be starker. For a start, all of Sir Packsalot's bleating about price gouging, my resupply here was still expensive but much cheaper than at Top of Georgia's store.And the people working there couldn't be nicer, asking about our hikes and generally treating us like sentient human beings rather than walking wallets.They weren't surprised at the amount of shade Sir Packsalot had been throwing their way but also had no wish to badmouth him back, preferring instead to pretend he didn't exist. That too said a lot about their character.Nothing quite captured the difference more than their offer, because it was a cold-ass day, for us to enjoy the warmth of the hostel while the rest of Team KRT wandered in, even though we weren't staying. While we were waiting, some of the others realised there was a round the mountain trail that avoided having to climb Blood Mountain immediately after Neels Gap. When we headed off after lunch, only Dirt, 2am and I opted to head over Blood Mountain. The others are purists -- 2am doesn't even slackpack -- who want to see every white blaze, whereas I'm usually pragmatic about the merits of whether to take the official trail. There didn't seem to be much point climbing the mountain in the mist but after hearing so much about Blood Mountain for all these years, I wanted to experience it for myself.And it was a viewless as expected and the route up the northern side was the epitome of indirect, veering around and through what seemed like every rock outcrop. The greasy conditions demanded care, since it would be a particularly invidious form of failure to end a thru-hike through injury just 30 miles from the end.On the far side of the mountain, the AT improved markedly and featured a gently-graded descent on good trail. I couldn't help thinking: "This is what causes nobos to complain so much?" It's amazing what 2000+ miles of trail fitness can do.We all reunited at a campground near a stream. The various hurricane remnants that have lashed the southern AT this season are particularly obvious here, with lots of downed trees, but there had been enough remediation work to render this campsite usable for all of us.The rain seems to be clearing too, which is in keeping with a forecast for clear weather for the next two days and then a wet, wintery blast. But the plan is that we'll be off the trail by then...Life is good.AT fact of the day: Today's "last time" event was the last outfitter and resupply on trail. But it was also the last time -- and indeed the first time -- the trail actually went through a building at Mountain Crossings via an open air corridor.