Date: 2008-03-28
From: Neels Gap

To: Cold Springs Gap
Miles today: 45.3

Hello everyone! My name is Carolyn, Catfish's girlfriend, and I will be keeping his journal updated as much as possible! Feel free to send any messages and I will print them and get them to him as soon as possible!Now on more of an update side of things ( :On the first day of hiking Wade made it to the Hawk Mountain Shelter. This is approximately 7.8 miles from Springer (not counting the 1 mile up Springer). He called me when he got there and said he was the first person there and had everything set up to sleep in the shelter. Sadly he already had a few blisters, which I was really surprised by because he had been wearing those boots everywhere! Like even when he got the mail, so I was so shocked when I heard all this! Anyways, I talked to him that next day around lunch time and he said that 15 people had slept in the shelter that night! oh boy! anyways he had hooked up with a group of 4 ( not including him) and 3 of those people had done the trail before! that was a great comfort to me and his mom! Anyways that day I was able to meet him!!! It was wonderful to see him! I met him and his group at Woody Gap around 6:00 and brought them some pizza, yea it had only been one day but I live just 20 minutes away from there, and we've got to take advantage of this while we can ( : Anyways he slept at Woody Gap and I helped his group out with some slack packing the next day while they made the climb up Blood Mountain. He said on the climb down that his knee had a twinge of pain, because the descent down Blood is supposedly much harder than the climb! But overall his body was feeling pretty good. I was waiting there when they rolled in to Neels Gap. The made it from Woody to Neels in about 5 hours which is really good timing! Wade and I got to spend some time together last night at Neels, it was so good to visit with him and he seemed to be in good spirits when I left. He gave me a couple days of food and lots of other odds and ends that he had been carrying to bring back here. I was happy to do all of this especially since his pack will be a little bit lighter now! (HE JUST CALLED ME A FEW MINUTES AGO!!! ( : I am so excited )Anyways, tonight they are at Cold Springs Gap and he said that the day had been pretty rough. It had been drizzling rain all day long and had overall just been bad weather. He sounded very tired and a little worn out. He said the blisters on his feel are not a whole lot better, which makes me really sad... Tomorrow they are hoping to make it to Tray Mountain Shelter which is 11.2 miles. He said that they were planning on leaving tomorrow at around 7:30 which is really really early when you've slept outside all night. ( and i still don't think he has gotten one really good nights rest, but i really hope that he will!) Tomorrow is supposed to be a pretty rough day, they are doing Rocky Mountain and Tray Mountain all in one day, and those are about 10 miles after they leave Cold Springs Gap. So he will probably be very tired tomorrow ) : If he makes it to Tray Mountain Shelter he will have completed the first 56.5 miles in the trail in 5 days of walking- I find this to be very impressive! On another note, his original main concerns were his pack weight and his knee. Obviously his knee is holding up pretty well to only have one noticeable pain for four days. Hopefully it will stay strong! His pack weight is still a little bit of an issue. like i said, I have lots of things that he gave to me that probably lightened the load by about 5-7 pounds, big difference!!! However, he may need to get a new pack because the way that it sits on his shoulder makes it hurt really bad, I believe that as far as his body goes, his shoulder has bothered him the most... but hopefully it will be feeling much better! He is only about twenty miles from the Ga.- N.C. State line and will be taking a day off in Hiawassee to recover a little bit. Well, I am thinking about him lots and miss him so much already! But everything has been going relatively well so far, aside from being tired sore and a little wet.I will try to update as soon as i hear more and hopefully on a more consistent bases! this week has been a little crazy with him leaving and everything! Until Next time,Carolyn and CatfishPS> confession I am not entirely computer savvy. I cannot figure out how to do daily miles and total miles so he did 14.6 miles today and has done 45.3 miles total.