Date: 2005-03-15
From: Gooch Mountain Shelter

To: Blood Mountain Cabins (Neels Gap)
Miles today: 15.6
Weather: light rain

You know what they say about best intentions. Knowing that I had a lot ofmiles to do today I rose from teh shelter REAL early. Newbie had stirredas soon as the sky had hinted that dawn was approaching, and as much as Itried to stay in my bag, I knew that I had to get out as soon as I couldfor the planned 12 mile day today. So off I went, I seemd to fly down thetrail. I don¢t know whether not having my tent made it so much easier, orwhether I was just motivated to crank out miles, but I made miles like youwould not believe. I arrived at Woody gap and spied the familiar HondaElement that I knew was Skip, Jakes dad. As I got closer to the carthings got better. Behind the Element were Skip, Jake, Raz¢¦AND ACOOLER. They say to me that there¢s a beer with my name on it.Apparently my name was sort of written in disappearing ink which onlylasted as long as I made it before they were heading out, so boy was Iglad I took off early today. I¢m not normally one for American beer, butthat Coors Light tasted like the sweat of the gods. Skip, that was trulyone of the best things that¢s happened to me so far, big thanks.Then for a surprise; Jake and Raz tell me that they¢re not heading to theWood¢s Hole shelter, where I had originally intended to go. They¢reheading for Neel¢s Gap, which is 4 miles past Wood¢s Hole¢¦and over BloodMountain. Now my 12 mile day seemed long enough, and 16 miles seemsREALLY long, but Neel¢s gap has the Walasi-Yi, which has an outfitter, ahostel, and REAL FOOD. So I decide to bite the bullet and go to Neel¢swith the Kentucky boys, we¢ve become pretty good friends so far and I¢msure they¢ll be good company.Knowing that Jake hikes faster than me, I took off after enjoying my beer.I must have been aking great time up the trail because even though I tooksome time to stop and take pictures, soak my feet in the stream for a bit,and even take a small namp, it took until about 1:30 for Jake and Raz tocatch up to me. We stopped for a big lunch at around 2:00, I decided toeat for lunch what I had planned to eat for dinner: white bean chili. I¢mnormally not one for spicy foods, but the chili was the last thing that Ihad for dinner, so there weren¢t many options. I try to soften the chiliup a little bit with some crackers, but iwas still spicy as all get out.I stomach it, and we head off with full stomachs.As we pass by the Wood¢s Hole Shelter, I think to myslef, you know, youshould probably reconsider this, but oh well, here we go. We get to thebase of Blood Mountain and I think to myself, ¢This doesn¢t look thatbad¢.BLOOD MOUNTAIN SUCKS. It was more up and more up it never seemed to end.Finally exhaused and sweating we reached the top of Blood Mountain. Noteto all hikers: Blood Mountain shelter does have a privy, and it¢s one ofthe new composting types. Anyway, Jake and I meed Kevin, who is anawesome guy at the top of Blood, he had earlier told us he would be comingto Neel¢s as well So it looks like a good night with the four of us andsome real food. We took a few pictures on top of blood and shoot somebull, then we head down the mountain.BLOOD MOUNTAIN SUCKS. Did I say that before? Well the downhills sucktoo. My ankles are throbbing and my shins are sore, but we finally madeit to the Walasi-Yi. We had read in the guidebook that there were somecabins nearby, and that split among the four of us the cabins would bereasonably priced. So we asked the guys at the Walasi-Yi about eh cabins,and they¢re¢¦a bit hesitant about it, but then again, they¢re competingfor business. We eventually get ahold of the cabins from the pay phone atthe Walasi-Yi and we reserve a cabin. No offense to the people at thehostel, it was a pretty cool looking place, but we just chose the cabins.And man, these cabins are awesome. It¢s a fair price and the guy who runsthe place is SUPER accomidating. He even loaned us his truck to get intotown, not that I¢m saying he¢d do that for everyone, I don¢t know if hewould or not, but he was nice enough to do it for us. So we head intotown and look for a buffet, the first one we find is a KFC buffet. Andwhile I¢m normally not a fast-food type, we demolished that AYCE southernfried chicken. We even swing by the grocery store and I pick up a decentresupply at the Bi-Lo. So we put some extra gas in the cabin guy¢s truckand then head back to the cabins for some more TV and chill time. When wereturn the keys to the cabin owner, he even tells us that we can do somelaundry. These cabins are awesome. Now for some well needed R&R in anactual bed.