Anyone have an ark we can borrow?

Well, yesterday was quite a nice day for the first half. We left our camp around 10:00 after a quick breakfast and started our way up Blood Mountain towards Neel's Gap (yes, there was a picture of Neel's Gap in the last blog, I added that picture just before I posted from Neel's).

Something else to be known at this point is that Skip and I have been officially dubbed with our trail names.  I've told you previously about Skip's affinity for invented stories of magic and whimsy, and as such he shall henceforth be known as Dr. Seuss, Seuss or any variation thereof.

I enjoy messing around on the harmonica when I can.  I'm not great, but I'm learning.  I also happen to have a tendency to burst into spontaneous song while hiking, cooking, or basically anytime.  I enjoy a variety of genres and artists, from Johnny Cash to Etta James, Tom Petty to Metallica, Frank Sinatra to Mumford and Sons.  Flip and Seuss repeatedly ask me, in an epic display of musical ignorance and lack of ability to identify musical talent, if I am singing Guns N Roses.  I will forever be known on the trail as Axl.

As of that time, Flip had not acquired a trail name... Read on if that foreshadowing intrigued you.

So we started on our way to Neel's and we passed Mountain Machine, a first time section hiker from my old/future stomping grounds in Austin, Texas.  She was looking to do 50 miles on her first adventure, and she was already pretty close. We actually met her parents in Neel's Gap later in the day, and they were about as excited for her as she was for herself, which was very nice to see.

A short while later we came across another solo hiker, Northwest Nick.  He claimed to have spotted several deer already (amongst other more grandiose claims), and he and his machete were just enjoying a pleasant lunch (he becomes important later).

We continued up to the peak of Blood Mountain to see some spectacular views and the oldest shelter on the AT, aptly named Blood Mountain Shelter (see photo from last post).  At this point we encountered Flying Squirrel, a thru-hiker from 2011 who was delivering trail magic in the form of Snicker's bars.  Many former thru-hikers routinely go back out on short portions of the trail to bring small treats to ease the burden they know so well.  It's a fairly simple thing, but it means a ton to current hikers.  She now works in Vermont as a trail maintainer in the summertime, so hopefully we'll cross her path again up the road a ways.

The weather began to worsen as we descended into the Gap, and as we arrived, the sky opened up into a squall.

We waited it out for a bit, did a small resupply in the ridiculously overpriced store, and made ourselves a delightful lunch of pepperoni, babybell cheese and tortillas (sensing a pattern yet?). We were deciding between staying the night in the hostel in Neel's or pushing on to Whitley Gap shelter, seven miles north.  According to our most recent weather update, winter storm Achilles was going to hit in earnest on Saturday morning.  We could stay and be guaranteed a warm meal, hot shower and dry bed, or we could risk getting caught in the storm. 

We were debating when Northwest Nick (who we had unanimously decided was the most annoying person we'd met yet) came trumping out of woods, talking the ear off of a nice older gentleman who simply couldn't walk fast enough to distance himself from the hapless Nick.

Sometimes in life tough decisions are made for you, and that happened for us when Northwest Nick announced that he would be holing up at the hostel.

Seven miles later, we arrived at a sign.  Apparently, Seuss and I had overlooked a key point in our guidebook.  The shelter TRAIL was seven miles away, with the shelter itself being another mile or so.  A minor discrepancy one might think, but with worsening weather, fading daylight, nagging injuries and growing appetites, none of us were thrilled.  Least of all Flip, who hadn't looked at the book and had counted on us to pay attention to the details... Whoops!

But being the eternal optimist that I am, I reminded them that soon we would be in a nice enclosed shelter, where we could dry our clothes, warm up and get a good night's sleep. 

And then we arrived at the shelter...

...which was a glorified three-walled woodshed...

...on a windy bluff...

...and it was full.

The words that we all said at that point would render this blog impassable to the FCC, but any of you that know us could make some pretty educated guesses.  "Darn", "shucks" and "oh no" come to mind...

Flip began to set up the tent behind the shelter while Seuss and I huddled under an awning preparing some dinner.  A short while later, we were all back on speaking terms, and due to his genius wind blocking jerry rig, we found Flip's trail name: MacGyver.

We met a few characters that night, Dr. Scholls from England and his friend Speedy Gonzales from Georgia who were on a weekend trip.  We shared some goodies, and Speedy began to play my harmonica, as he  actually was a bit musically talented.  After sharing a few laughs, we all crashed out for the night, they in their shelter, us in a future puddle.

At this point I must say, it was cold, it was wet and it was miserable, but without MacGyver's quick thinking and ingenuity, it would have been infinitely worse.  A savior in human clothes may be an overstatement, but not by much.

When we awoke, the shelter was empty of all but Bob, an elderly gentleman, formerly of Cape Cod, more recently of Florida, and currently of the Appalachian Trail.  Between the four of us, we rigged up some plastic that Bob had and our tent to form a temporary fourth wall to the shelter.  And now, as I write this, we are sitting behind said wall, wiling away the hours of our first zero day (a day when you don't hike at all).  The storm is supposed to let up tomorrow afternoon, but as of yet we are still sitting in the midst of a major wind and flood warning, hoping against hope that we can jump this ship (ark?) tomorrow.  Until then, happy trails.