Date: 2011-04-02
From: Gooch Gap Shelter

To: Whitley Gap Shelter
Miles today: 21.8
Weather: broken clouds

I got started early and left the shelter while the sun was rising. I stopped to lighten my load (in an composting friendly manner) and soon after Oompa caught up. I hadn't hiked with anyone before, so it was a novel and pleasant experience to hike with him for a mile or so. When we got to a nice view, I stopped to take pictures and Oompa sped on ahead. In a while I caught back up on a hill (Oompa is in better shape and has much more hiking experience, but with my lighter load I tended to hike slightly faster up the hills) and we hiked for a bit, meeting Three Hats along the way. Three Hats is a small, chipper young woman with a recently shaved head, a bandanna and three different hats. She was smaller than me and carrying more than Oompa's and my pack combined, but kept up with us hiking without so much as getting short on breath.At another scenic vista I stopped again and Oompa continued ahead, and I got to meet Three Hats' hiking partners, Rocky Raccoon and Laugh Track. Together the three of them called themselves BAWG, for Bad Ass Wyo Girls, from the camp in Maine they all attended as young girls. They were each happy and friendly, after having hiked more than nearly any other hiker I'd met. Badass indeed.I didn't see Oompa again until near the summit of Blood Mountain. The mountain itself was the biggest climb on the trail so far, but was gradual enough that I didn't even realize I was on it until near the top. The summit was windy but beautiful, and in what was becoming a pattern, Oompa moved on ahead while I stayed back to take pictures. At the summit I realized that despite the sunscreen I was wearing, I was still beginning to burn. I put on some more sunscreen to limit the damage and hurried down to Neel's Gap and Walaysi Yi.Walaysi Yi had a good crowd of hikers, and in addition to seeing Oompa again, I met Milk Man, who used to be a ridgerunner in CT / MA, and is now attempting a thru-hike. Milk Man took a picture of my pack on the scale so that I could weigh it with my camera inside. (About 10.5 pounds, but I hadn't resupplied yet.)I had been intending to spend the night at the hostel, but with hours of daylight left, the pull of the trail was too strong. So I bought some food -- more than I as intending; my target 4-5 lbs somehow turned into 10 lbs without me realizing until getting back outside to the scale.It's hard to explain how strong the pull of the trail is. All the logical arguments pointed towards stopping at Neel's Gap -- I had already done 15 miles, could maybe upload some pictures, and be social with all the other hikers there. But after having hiked all morning and the day before, stopping while it was still light out felt almost like suffocating, like staying in place must feel like to a shark. I had thought that I would be eager for a opportunity to use the internet again, but staying inside I just felt antsy (it probably didn't help that I had to leave my pack outside; even with carrying my camera, leaving my pack unattended felt like leaving a baby alone on a sidewalk while you go in to buy cigarettes).So I started hiking, but was soon unconvinced as to whether I had taken the right trail leaving Walaysi Yi. After another quarter mile with still no white blaze I became convinced that the one initial faint blaze was simply a rectangular moss spot and turned around. Back near the start of the trail I met some Boy Scouts who were pretty sure it really was the AT, and so I turned around yet again. Finally, another half mile or so along, there was finally a real white blaze. For the first time I found myself swearing at whatever trail maintainer decided it was a good idea to wait nearly a mile along the trail before placing a white blaze after a confusing road and hostel junction. But soon the pleasure of walking the trail had me in good spirits again.I walked another five miles or so before taking a blue blaze trail down to a shelter 1.2 miles off the trail. The blue blaze trail it self was a gorgeous ridge between two peaks, and as I walked the sun set down bellow a panoramic view of rolling hills, with tiny skyscrapers gleaming from the sunset far to the south. I wondered how many people would walk this far off the trail, and when I got to the empty shelter just after sunset, I had my answer.It's surreal but not unpleasant to be alone in a shelter on my second real night on the AT. I eat a delicious dinner of squished bagel with cheese, hang my food and write in my journal by the red light of my headlamp. Now the stars are out, and city lights shimmer distant on the horizon. I will turn off my headlamp and watch the stars until I get tired and crawl into my warm sleeping bag. Snoring in the shelter, for once, seems unlikely to be an issue.