Date: 2014-03-15
From: Gooch Mountain Shelter

To: Lance Creek Campsite
Miles today: 8.5
Weather: clear sky

Day 3- We had a good start to our day with Poptarts for breakfast and wearing clean underwear! And the day only got better from there. We covered 8.5 miles and it was a bit easier than yesterday's miles. We had mostly sunny skies with high clouds and pleasant temps. Last night just as we got into our tent strong winds kicked up and it sprinkled rain for about a minute. The forecast we saw before we started hiking showed today as a rainy day, but that has been pushed to tomorrow. As we approached Gooch Gap this AM we heard voices and saw a fair number of cars. The trail went right through a small parking area, full of cars and trucks and a group of Georgia's National Guard circled up getting their instructions for the day. We pretty much had to walk right through the circle but the guys were very welcoming and even offered us some water, which we didn't need. Squirrel then asked if they had pizza, which they didn't but we were then offered whiskey! We continued on, whiskey-less! We enjoyed a beautiful overlook on Ramrock Mountain before descending to Woody Gap. A few hundred yards from Woody Gap we came around a corner and there, coming towards us, was a young boy about 12 years old. He got a big smile on his face and gave us an enthusiastic "Hi!" He then told us that at the gap his church had hot dogs, drinks, chips and cookies waiting for us! Yippee! Real trail magic. There were actually two groups doing trail magic, Outdoor South and the Glenloc Baptist Church. At Outdoor South we got Gatorade and a banana. We then crossed the road and met the Baptists. With hot dog in hand we talked to the parishioners and discovered that their church has been doing trail magic for 7 years and they come up from SW of Atlanta two weekends a year and provide trail magic at 5 different gaps. We hope to run into them again tomorrow! It is amazing what a hot dog, a bag of chips and a warm welcome can do for your spirits! We flew up the next mountain. A big thank you to the fine folks at Outdoor South and Glenloc Baptist Church. Our destination today was Lance Creek and we arrived around 1PM and as we were walking around trying to find the best campsite we met up with a couple who were out for a day hike. The woman asked us our names and after we gave her our trail names she asked what our real names were. When we told her she said she knew us from our trail journal for this hike as well as the trail journal we did for our NPT hike! We talked with them for a long time before they needed to move on and we needed to set up camp. We are both ready to extend our daily mileage but these first 4 days have been dictated by a rule that if you want to camp on Blood Mountain (tomorrow's hike) you must have a bear canister for your food. No thru-hiker carries a bear canister so you have to schedule your daily miles so you can camp before and after Blood Mountain. There will be a lot of people camped here at Lance Creek tonight so we can all get up and over Blood Mountain tomorrow and not have to worry about bears and regulations. After that we plan to slowly increase our daily miles. Rain is due to start tonight and hang around for a couple of days. We feel lucky to have had 3 dry days to start our hike.All is well.