Day 4 – Trail Magically Delicious on a Biggest Day Yet.
Gooch Gap Shelter to Woods Hole Shelter (entrance)
Miles hiked: 11.9
Total Miles: 27.0
Gorgeous day for hiking. Stayed nice and warm in my hammock overnight and as a bonus, the forest didn’t burn down from last night’s neglected fire.
It would appear that I am still having a hard time getting going in the morning. Bee Chucker had a nice head cold going for him and decided to head out early. I tinkered with a bit of breakfast and packing up, all the while enjoying the blissfully weird Lil’ asking people if anyone has something to spare or to pass something of hers over to her from afar.. then there was the constant inquiries from a young SkunkApe.
Leaving them, I finally headed out a bit after 9am. The weather has really been quite nice the past couple days and this one looked to be another awesome day. Shortly after leaving the shelter, I had to pull off for a pebble in my shoe at Gooch Gap. Phoenix Rising and Missing Person pass by but stop just across USFS 42. As I approach, I see a cooler with a bag (for trash) next to it. 
TRAIL MAGIC! Pepper and Freckles (both former Thru-hikers) had left a cooler of different varieties of small sodas (thank god there was a Dr. Pepper in there) and beer, specifically, Yuengling. Phoenix Rising said that it was hiker’s favorite beer because it’s cheap, good and a domestic brew from Pennsylvania. Let’s see, it’s 10:30am, of course I can have second breakfast..Yuengling it is! Oh yeah, there was a box of Krispy Kreme donuts there, unfortunately they were completely covered in bugs, no thanks. I tried to share the beer with Phoenix but she only took a couple polite sips. Guess it was either too early or not hot enough out. 
Did I mention it was a beautiful day for a hike? My pace seems to be a bit quicker than Phoenix and Missing Person had already pushed on at Gooch Gap, so I spent the morning walking mostly alone, which was cool. Then, early in the afternoon, my day was about to get a hell of a lot better, I saw a sign duck taped to a tree, Trail Angels Ahead – Free Food – Nancy & George – Cheryl & Hal. Two, in one day, c’mon, this is bordering on silly!! I’ll happily take it. Nothing perks up your step than knowing you’re about to get some “Free Food.” Sweet!!
It was such a nice day that there were a ton of people hanging out in the road side park areas (both sides) of Woody Gap . In fact, there was so many people, that initially it was kinda hard to actually find where the Trail Magic was located. From the east side of the gap, I could see Bee Chucker, Bojangles and Missing person next to a truck with table of food with coolers all around. Nancy and George as well as Cheryl and Hall welcomed me to help myself to any and everything. One of their sons (Triple Deuce) had completed a thru-hike in 2007 and they were out to help give back to the community that supported him during his time on the trail. There was cheese, crackers, cookies, chips, fruit and some really wonderful smelling chili. I opted out of the chili for diet reasons but took full advantage of everything else they had to offer, including some Dr. Pepper.
Since Bee Chucker and the rest had been their awhile they eventually pushed on. I myself decided to wait to see how Phoenix Rising was doing. I didn’t think she’d be too far along. While enjoying this smorgasbord and looking back towards the trail, I noticed a very familiar dog.. Pepper! Sprite and Freckles were making their way across the road and we chatted for a bit. I thanked her (and Freckles) for that awesome breakfast trail magic. She enjoyed the little note I left her;
“You, me and Pepper.. we’re even now.”
Where the hiker feed was today has a bit of history to it in the “Appalachian Trail Guide – North Carolina-Georgia.” It’s a book with information regarding water sources, shelters, various trails crisscrossing the AT, profile layouts and more. One additional feature is the history of some of the trails, roads, mountains and in this case, Woody Gap (3150′). I’d love to paraphrase the history of this particular spot but the book does such a good job at it, I’ll cite it instead;
Arthur Woody was the state’s first ranger (often called the “barefoot ranger” because of his tendency to leave off his shoes). It is said that he saw his father kill the last deer in the forest, during a time of little respect for wildlife and deteriorating conditions of mountains and forests. Woody vowed that he would some day put back what the mountain men of his time had taken away. In time, he began to restock the forest with deer and the streams with fish. His outstanding achievements in forest-fire prevention, game restoration and preservation, land reclamation and timber management paved the way for today’s advanced methods used by the Forest Service. Woody was a large, round, mountain man; the story is told that he asked the federal government to build a road over the mountain from Suches to Stone Pile Gap but was told the government did not build roads, they only improved them. So Woody “scraped out a trail through the mountains” and then told the government, “I have my road. Now, you come and improve it.” Ga.60 is that road.
Using his own monies, Woody started buying and rounding up deer, some which he even had names for, in 1927 only to have the state re-open deer hunting 14 years later. In 1946 “Ranger’ died, having suffered serious depression from the state’s decision. Hard to imagine such a dynamic character these days.
Soon a weary but well-spirited Phoenix came rolling into the feed with Groove just behind. She was doing okay, but wasn’t worried as she was actually moving slow to try to protect her arm. Good. I pushed on after tossing my trash from my pack away.
There was a nice little climb up Big Cedar Mountain (3737′). Passed quite a few day hikers going up the mountain and in one case, two guys with two large dogs (breed unknown) who had their own packs. They said that they were trying to acclimate them to the rigors of hiking with packs. I wish anyone luck with trying to hike anywhere with any animal. Once I arrived at the top, an older gentleman had just finished a “really cool story” as Bee later told me, about how his German Shepard (dogs are everywhere anymore) was of Royal decent. As soon as I get the whole story, I’ll edit this.
Bee Chucker and I hiked together for the rest of the day. Our paces seem to match quite well and he’s an interesting guy. Apparently he just moved with his girlfriend to Baltimore, MD. However, they do not even have a place there. His girlfriend is staying with her brother and his wife while he’s out here hiking. Sound like a very cool girl to be able to understand his needs while she does her own thing too. Very cool.
We pull into Jarrods Gap (3250’) and take a quick break and while there two guys approach us from their little camping area. They ask if I have any Aqua Mira or some way to treat water. They were weekenders and had forgotten to bring a water treatment system. Bee Chucker and I chatted about hiking the AT, Atlanta (where they were from) and other silly topics while I retrieved my ‘emergency’ tablets for them. After chatting for 20 minutes we moved on, still had another 1 and 1/2 miles to go to get to Woods Hole Shelter for the evening.
Not sure why, but for some reason this last little section seemed to have really done me in. By the time I got to the shelter entrance (3600’), all my body wanted was more water, so I went to fetch some. We had earlier decided that if water was near the entrance to the shelter, we’d just camp there to avoid walking the .4 off the Appalachian Trail to the actual shelter. Apparently lots of other people thought the same thing, including a church group with young kids. They were nice and ‘well-behaved,’ but I wanted nothing to do with that, too many camping trips with kids around have taught me better. Bee pulled in just as I’d returned and had started setting up my hammock some 20-30 yards away from the group. Since Bee is a ‘ground dweller,’ he opted for the easier route and parked himself just north of them.
Once I erected my hammock, I just laid inside for about 90 minutes, dozing in and out of sleep. I was pooped! Granted, this was definitely my longest day at 11.9 miles but wow, feeling like this, no good.
Bee came over and told me that I could use his bear line (cool, less work for me to do) and that a Boy Scout troop had pulled into the camping area..so that’s where the noise was coming from when I awoke.. HA! He was a bit bummed but said that he was just going to put in his MP3 player and go to sleep.
I waited and waited to see if Phoenix and Groove were going to make it. I had even held off making my dinner (15 bean mix) until dusk so that when they pulled in, I’d have a nice hot dinner ready to go. They never showed. So, here I am feeling awful trying to eat about 3 cups of cooked beans. Again, this process took forever as every couple bites I had to lay down and relax just to keep them down. Officially, this sucked.
I did my best but didn’t come close to even being able to eat half of my dinner, so I bagged them up, just in case Phoenix and Groove did show. Cleaned my bowl and hung my food over by Bee where the campers were quite loud for 9-9:30pm, running around and shouting. Can’t say I felt good, but I fell asleep rather swiftly.
