Date: 2008-02-22
From: Slaughter Creek Campsite GA

To: Low Gap Shelter GA 
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: light rain

Day 5 ¢ Friday, February 22 ¢ Low Gap Shelter GA ¢ Miles Today: 14.0 Total Miles: 41.5Final outcome of the $3 homemade rain fly? Although it was a vast improvement over the single wall structure, we still have what we believe is considerable condensation issues to the point where it drips a bit on us. And although it probably could be used for the hike, we prefer something a bit more bombproof. And although we have another tent (or two) at home that would work, we have our eyes on one at the Neels Gap outfitter. We were up at 6 so we could be on the trail by 7. Our first adventure was going up and over the infamous Blood Mountain. No view of course as it was foggy and rainy. At the Blood Mountain Shelter, we peeked in and saw people still sleeping, one of which was DonkeyLegs. The hikers had rigged their tent rain flies in the open windows to try to ward off the moisture and cold. We arrived at Mountain Crossing Outfitter at 9:00. Winton, the owner, was quite surprised that we had arrived so early! Before we left on this great adventure, we had researched tents in case we wanted to buy a new one. One of the ones we were interested in was available at this outfitter, however Winton told us that he¢s getting a lot of returns on it. He suggested the MSR Hubba Hubba instead. We were familiar with the Hubba Hubba, so we went ahead and bought it. We left our old tent with them to mail home. Of course, they charged us $17 to mail home via UPS at 6 pounds (the tent was weighed when it was wet). A bit steep but that's OK; we're not humping the old tent to Maine, so we'll pay the price to mail it home. They were nice enough to agree to dry the tent before mailing it, so that mold would not damage it! Very nice!Our food drop arrived at that same Outfitter and for a $1 donation to the trail fund, we were able to retrieve it. It took us a while to sort through the food as we still had food in our food bag. We had to determine what food to keep and what food to throw in the hiker box. That's obviously something we'll have to practice a bit more as we were quite slow! It took us over 2 hours to select the tent, sort through the food drop and repack our packs! We used the hostel area at the outfitter¢s to sort though our food and repack our bags. There we met Willie Boy, a middle aged guy from Chicago. He's planning a 6-7 month hike doing just 10-mile days, so I doubt that we will see him again. Real nice gentleman. The person who runs the hostel and has run it for the last 17 years is Pirate. It looks like he probably hasn't shaved or trimmed his beard since he started running the hostel 17 years ago! Again, a very nice guy, just a little bit odd. Also staying at the hostel were two other hikers, though not thru-hikers. They are from Peru and are doing a 10-day section hike in the area. It's amazing how many international folks we are seeing on the trail each day.It was very foggy all day, so we had no views the entire day. Finally, by the afternoon, the drizzle stopped enough so we could remove the rain jackets, which is a good thing as we were beginning to cook in them. Since it has been raining for about two days, we decided to change our itinerary and head further up the trail to a shelter. Although Grasshopper does not like mice, we thought it would be a nice change of pace to not set up the tent on muddy wet grounds and have to pack it the next day dirty. Unfortunately as we approached Low Gap Shelter, after a 14-mile day, we could smell a campfire and could hear a lot of hooting and hollering. We knew we had company. The frowns on our face appeared as we realized our quiet night in the shelter was not meant to be but we hoped that perhaps there would be just a few of them and room for us. Unfortunately, there were probably 7 or 8 middle-aged men out for a 4-day weekend hike and the shelter was mighty packed. No room for us. They seemed interested in our hike and even gave us a couple Reese's cups. Our first instance of Trail Angels on the adventure! We were thrilled.We set up our brand new tent up the hill from them and never did hear much noise from the boys.   Very considerate guys, as I¢m sure they were wanting to let out some more hooting and hollering. The new tent sets up pretty easily. We're pleased with it. It's more of a 2 person setup job than a 1 person but that's no problem. We'll just adjust our evening routines. Once inside, it actually feels more spacious than the other tent. It is about a pound heavier, so luxury does have it's cost. And, of course, since it's a double walled tent, it packs a bit bulkier, too.   But it will keep us drier.The terrain today was about the same as the previous days except I think the inclines were a bit sharper and we had one which was a bit longer than we had been experiencing. Still shorter than we're used to in the Smokies. Anytime we're feeling a little bit of a cardio workout going up a sharp incline, we know it will be short lived; they all last about 20 minutes or so - not too bad so far. Looking at the map, it appears that we may have our biggest incline yet tomorrow. But since we did a long day today, we only have 7 plus miles tomorrow. Not too bad. Already we are seeing injuries. As mentioned earlier, one thru-hiker (Phoenix) has a knee injury and is hiking rather slow. And we've read in the registers where another hiker got off the trail with a broken foot. We don't believe she was a thru-hiker but we're not really sure.   Despite the weather, we're having a blast. It hasn't been horrible weather; tonight it's actually a bit warmer - 50 some degrees but damp due to all the rain over the past 36 hours.   We¢re still socked in with fog. Tonight we'll probably go to sleep with the barred owls again as we seem to do every night. We¢re looking forward to a dry day tomorrow - perhaps we can get to camp early and get some of our stuff dried out. Goodnight from Georgia.