Blood Mountain

   Last night was probably the worst night I'm going to experience on my entire through hike of the Appalachian Trail. I kept sliding down to the bottom of my tent finding myself wedged at the bottom, painfully crushing my sensitive big toenails. I know now that I didn't have enough water at the end of the day causing me to shiver like crazy as the temperate dropped. I didn't get any sleep, perhaps just dozed off until it started raining. The incline had pushed the bottom of my tent out beyond the pritective reach of my rainfly causing the "bathtub" edge of my tent to start filling with water. I had all my hiking clothes layed out at the bottom of my tent to hopefully air out overnight. That being said ALL of my hiking clothes got soaked. Then the bottom of my sleeping pad and my sleeping quilt got wet. There was a backsplash that happened when the rain would hit the ground near my tent then it would splash up and spray me and my sleeping quilt. It was a moist night. Once I found out what was happening i started wringing my wet clothes out and laying them out else where in my tent. I ended up pouring the water into one of my shoes by accident too. I had to get out to tighten the lines of my tent then get the rest of the water out. I spent the rest of the night half asleep trying to make sure i don't slide down again.

   I got an early morning at 7am. Mike and I decided to hike together to try to make it to Neels Gap which is 16 miles. Since everything of mine was wet I wanted to make it to a place where i can sleep inside and dry off.

Mike on top of Blood Mountain

   Shortly into the day we encountered our first trail magic! Trail magic is when someone does something especially nice for the through hikers just to help us along. A group had a bunch of tents set up and had this huge breakfast set up and a seating area out of the rain. It was still raining. I got an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich, banana bread, berries, and an apple. They had a lot more too but I wanted to get going.

   I reached the point that I needed to take my first dump in the woods. I was trying to make it to woody gap because it was a road intersection that had restrooms according to my guide book. I couldn't make it to I got to test out my new trowel and buried that soft serve.

   When we got to Woody Gap we found more trail magic! I got pancakes, fruit cups, girl scout cookies, veggie straws, and more. I barely touched any of my food for the day.

   Both trail magic tests had hiker boxes. Hiker boxes are an area where hikers can leave gear or food they ditched and other hikers can pick up gear they need. These were both tables but they are still called boxes for whatever reason.

  Having the 2 trail magics in a row really made up for the horrible night. My night when from awful to an awesome day.

   I hiked really slowly because of my toes. My right toe nail is the one I'm really concerned about now. The rash I had on my hands went away, I was feeling pretty good until all the sugar and fiber I ate today ran right through me. Nothing motivates someone to run up a mountain like having the runs. Once it hit me everything was steep terrain until the top so i ran right on up to the top of Big Cedar Mounrain. The view would have been fantastic if it wasn't so foggy out. There was a light rain that would come and go all morning.

   Blood Mountain was brutal. It's the highest point on the AT in the state of Georgia. It was a looong way up. We crossed another trail called Slaughter Creek Trail, on Blood Mountain. Cheery right?  The views on top were fantastic though. I was feeling severe stomach pains near the top till Neels Gap. I didn't now this at the time but they were hunger and thirst pains because i was burning up so many calories that day. When we got to the bottom of Blood Mountain and into Neels Gap we found more trail magic. They were just packing up but we got plenty of food for dinner. Blood Mountain was rediculously rocky on the way down. The top reminded me a lot of Isle Royale National Park the way the rocks were formed.

The view on top of blood mountain

   We found out that Mounrain Crossings, Blood Mountain Cabins, and the other hotel down the street were all full for the evening. We had been hiking for 12 and a half hours and it was dark. We ended up walking over to the cabins to see if anyone had space. We ran into Bruce and Justin, 2 other through hikers who met up and welcomed us to stay with them. In a sense that was a 4th bit of trail magic for the day!
That shower felt godly and I fell asleep like a rock.

Tonight at Neel Gap I'm at mile 31.4.