Date: 2019-02-22
From: Woods Hole Shelter 

To: Blood Mountain Cabins
Miles today: 3.6
Weather: light rain

Friday Feb 22 Day 5Woods Hole shelter to Neels Gap3.6 miles Last night was another rainy night in a shelter, the difference was we had little mice trying to keep dry with us. They are extremely cute but can chew through your pack if you have any food or smell good items they may want. I don¢t believe I¢ve mentioned this but on this section of the trail Georgia provides bear proof canisters that we all put our food bags in to prevent all animals including mice from getting our food. I have to digress for a moment, before I ever left for the trail I asked Mr. Perry a dear friend of our family if he knew of a good tick repellent for my beard and he recommended teakwood oil as a natural deterrent. So I researched this essential oil and found out that indeed this was recommended but also cedar wood, Eucalyptus and Lemon oil are all good tick repellents. So I went and bought all of these ingredients and made my own concoction to bring along on the trip. Well this oil smells amazing in my beard especially amongst us stinky hikers but what is really cool is that when I am straining up a mountain and I¢m breathing hard the fragrance actually seems to help me somehow. Back to my stormy night in the shelter with the mice. I woke up in the middle of the night and a few inches away a little mouse was scurrying past near my head, Thats when it occurred to me they may think I¢m food cause I smell so nice. Well I kept one eye opened the rest of the night and my beard tucked in my bag.When morning came guess what? give up?.... It was raining pretty hard but we were all in great spirtsknowing we were going into town after a very short milage day known as a Nero. The mice left me alone. Another great pleasure this morning was that we could wear our precious never ever get wet sleep clothes and not don the freezing, wet,smelly clothes from yesterday.You see on the trail we keep our sleeping bag,a dry shirt, leggings and socks hermetically sealed only to be used for sleep and NEVER to be worn hiking no matter how cold, wet or disgusting the weather might be. The only exception is when you are going into town to do laundry the same day. Today was that day but there was a major obstacle to over come, the tallest meanest mountain on the Georgia Appalachian trail BLOOD MOUNTAIN.With rain pelting down Sunshine , BlueGrass and I headed north. Tex and Rebel had already left and Gopher and Peach would be following close behind. The climb was really not that tough it¢s the descent that is technical. We carefully climbed down slick exposed rock face trying not to slide down the mountain truly dangerous in any conditions but the hard rain made it even more so.Well I¢m proud to announce our Tramily made it up and down safe and sound and we are all checked into two Blood Mnt cabins thanks to Rebel¢s magnanimous generosity .Thank you Rebel!When we got to the check in office a pleasant surprise there was Legs, Rooster and Webster our original posse was back together. They had taken a zero today and we were all glad to see each other.On top of that my dear friend and trail mentor Gary Eggers met us and delivered us wonderful trail magic Mountain house meals and other goodies. Thank you Gary and Susan!Jimmy the gentleman that interviewed me yesterday has offered to slack pack us tomorrow so I believe it will be Bluegrass, Sunshine and myself. He will drop us off at Hogpen gap and we will hike back southbound without our packs for 6.9 miles in the rain but we will be able to stay in our cabin one more night!