Date: 2017-04-04
From: Neels Gap

To: Poplar Stamp Gap
Miles today: 12.9
Weather: overcast clouds

We slept in to varying degrees of success, waking up with the sun and rolling over/browsing the internet on phones until ~8am before we got up and started packing for our 930am shuttle. The beds were super comfortable and I slept great last night. Outside, the sun was shining and the temperature was perfect for hiking, so we were eager to get moving.Overnight, the bathroom transformed into the world worst smelling sauna, but did successfully dry all of our shoes. Also, it turns out that we had started with 24 beers, not 18 like I had said last entry, and we finished all but 6 amongst the 5 of us. We packed the rest of the beer, the extra food, and all of our stuff into the shuttle and were deposited right where we had left off the day before at Neels Gap.We all did a quick resupply, and I picked up a day of food so that I had enough to get to Hiawasse, some sunscreen, and a hat to block the sun. The folks at Neels took a picture of us and a couple other hikers for their Instagram, and we were off, headed uphill out of Neels Gap in the 60deg temperature and in the beautiful sun at ~1030am. For the first couple days off hiking I had a tendon on the top of my foot which had gotten a bit sore, but the afternoon of rest had gotten rid of that thankfully. We stopped for lunch atop an eastward vista, and admired the landscape of interlocking ridges and hills sprawled before us. Georgia is without a doubt the most beautiful state we've hiked through so far on the AT.We decended into another gap and came across TRAIL MAGIC!!! One Way Ministries had a table with snacks, water, a first aid kit, and an assortment of gear available. King Tut, the man running the event, showed the ~20 NOBOs enjoying the treats pictures of the snow in this spot a couple weeks earlier and encouraged us to stop by their events at trail days, where they provide a dinner to the first 600 hikers, showers, sewing and gear repair, barber services and sponsor doctors and vets to assist hikers if they need it and an eating contest (with hotdog and cake divisions). Lookout and I didn't stay long, enough to refill our water and have a few snacks, before tackling a short but steep 800ft ascent. At the peak we made arrangements for our first zero by reserving spots at a hostel for Thursday and Friday nights, to avoid the snow we're supposed to get Friday. We'll also head into Hiawasse to resupply for the next couple days until Franklin, NC, and the day of rest will be good to allow our bodies to recouperate from the first week of hiking (though we both feel good right now).Those plans made, we continued on. We found a sign for a shelter 1.2 miles away (shelters are typically very close to the trail) that was blue blazed (which means it's a side trail) and were momentarily confused, unable to comprehend a shelter so far off trail. That straightened out, we decended the other side of the hill, refilled our water, and came across TRAIL MAGIC. Georgia Adventure, one of the guys who organized the second trail magic I got on the first day, was offering water to passing hikers since the spring (that we had just filled up at) wasn't flowing very well. Having already filled, we topped off and continued on, spending a pleasant afternoon traversing some rolling hills.We arrived at Low Gap Shelter to find 20-30 people setting up their shelters and hanging out, so we only spent a few moments there to grab a snack before heading back out to try to beat them to a campsite which listed only one tent space (we figured we could fit 2). We hiked for a bit with Disciple, a legally blind thru hiker, before reaching Poplar Stamp Gap, our destination for the night. At ~5pm we setup camp with a German couple who was already there and began to make dinner as another couple hikers arrived. And another. And more. In addition to Matt^2 and McKaine showing up, basically everyone we had met hanging out at low gap decided to camp here, ~20 people. Somehow they all fit their shelters... welcome to camping in the bubble. We all ate dinner and conversated for a couple hours as the sun set behind the mountains to the west. Lookout and I had finished dinner and hung our bear bag fairly early, and got to watch the rest attempt (and finally succeed) to find suitable branches for hanging in a forest with 100ft trees with no low limbs. They managed to hang bear bags completely encircling our little tent city, which I'm sure is the recommended strategy.Lookout and I are planning another early start tomorrow to try to beat some rain 13 miles to a shelter. With the multitude of weather forecasts that everyone at camp pulled down, we're very certain that rain will fall from the sky at some point tomorrow, but have widely differing estimates of when it will start, so we'll see how it goes.Trail Joke: I gotta stop and fix my sock, I'm getting a hot spot. WiFi? Out here???