Blood Mountain Shelter to White Oak Stamp

Day Five – Tuesday, October 4
9.7 miles in 9.5 hours
Blood Mountain Shelter to White Oak Stamp

Sunrise on Blood Mountain

We got up before sun-up the next morning, rolled up our sleeping mats and bags, packed it all in and slipped out the window with the man still snoring in the front room.  Sure wish we had decided to go to Neels Gap with Jaybird last night!  Nevertheless, we were looking forward to getting a real breakfast at the Outfitter/Hostel at Neel's Gap this morning, so we held off on eating anything on our way down this morning.   

I used my trusty little mirror to discover that my eyes were very swollen – allergic reaction to the mice or the musky room?

The rocky trail leaving Blood Mountain.

Me coming down the rocky decline from Blood Mountain.

The climb down from Blood Mountain was rocky and steep, but not too long or hard and we made it to the Mountain Crossings Hostel at Walasi-yi (Neels Gap) in record time. 

This historical stone building was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934.  It was originally a restaurant for Vogel State Park and now houses an outfitter and a hiker hostel.  The A.T. itself passes through the building,marking the only covered portion of the trail's 2100 plus miles.  The white blaze is right on the building where the trail passes through. 

We walked into the store at Mountain Crossings with one thing on our minds.  When asked by the clerk if she could help us, Wait-up said "Yea, we're looking for food."  To which she replied, "We have frozen pizza and sandwiches in the freezer."  "Uh," Wait-up said, "Is there a restaurant close by?"  "Yea, she said about nine miles up the road."  So much for a good, hot breakfast.

Wait-up had a cheese-steak sandwich and I picked out a chicken sandwich, which we heated in the microwave.  We finally found the coffeepot and enjoyed a couple cups of hot coffee with our breakfast out on the patio. 

Before we left we bought us a treat – ooo weee – a Big Sur bar that had to weigh a pound each – we bought three of them for $4 each, total of about 600 calories each too.  But, man-oh-man, was it a good, filling meal and came in very handy for breakfast when we were out of water and couldn’t cook our oatmeal.  (Oh, we split each of them each time so each of us only consumed about 300 calories at a time.)  When you’re on the trail, you don’t worry about calories cause you are burning so many walking up and down mountains.  For once in my life – I ate ANYTHING I could get my hands on.  Plus, they gave us lots of energy for climbing mountains.

We filled our water bottles and camelbacks and headed off again on the trail.

We entered Raven Cliffs Wilderness after leaving Neels Gap and only met a couple of men going south today.  After Tesnatee Gap, we faced what seemed to be the steepest, if not the highest, mountain yet – Wildcat Mountain.  Why is it that the smaller obstacles seem to be the hardest to overcome?

We passed Whitley Gap Shelter on purpose – in our planning we noticed that this shelter is 1.2 miles off the trail (DOWNHILL!) so we determined early that we would not plan to stay here for the night and add 2.4 miles to our already-long-enough journey.  Whether that was a good decision or not was yet to be seen, since the shelters are the best place to count on getting water, which we were now getting low on again. 

The empty water hole at Hogpen Gap.

We continued on to Hogpen Gap where our Hiker’s Companion indicated that we could find water.  The clerk at Mountain Crossings had also confirmed that the water supply at Hogpen Gap should be sufficient – oops, we found an empty water hole there.

After Hogpen Gap, GA 348 Highway, we entered Mark Trail Wilderness.  How many wildernesses have we been in so far?  Three, I think. 

A quick check of the Hiker’s Companion told us that the next water would be at the next shelter, Low Gap, 4.4 miles away, so we were forced again to ration our water overnight in order to make it last to the next watering hole. 

When we passed up Whitley Gap Shelter, we felt confident that we would find a campsite along the trail to spend the night.  Although there was not one indicated in the book, we had found that usually there were campsites regularly spaced on the trail where people had camped before even if they were not “official” campsites.  And indeed there was one not far from Hogpen Gap, BUT we had read that we should not camp close to the gaps where a road crosses, so we continued on….  (I didn’t have a good feeling about this by this time.)

This had been our longest day so far.  We had been walking since 7:45 this morning and it was now 7:00 at night, we had to find a place to set up camp.  Seeing no established campsite, we decided to make our own, so we began to look for a level place to set the tent.   We cleared an area between the trail and the mountain edge and got set up and the bear bag hung just before dark fell. 



Our campsite in the middle of nowhere.

I heard things all night long!  I didn’t sleep, and poor Wait-up didn’t sleep much either cause I kept waking him up to tell him that I heard something outside.  I told him I didn’t want to be by myself and as long as he was asleep, I was by myself.  He was a good sport and even got up and blew his whistle outside the tent once to run off whatever it was I heard.  I was sure a bear would come to our tent that night.  I’ll admit it – I was scared! 



Well, right before dawn the next morning, I REALLY DID hear something!  It sounded like a herd of animals coming up the hill from the trail toward our tent and there was a BUNCH of them.  I woke Wait-up up again and he heard it too this time.  He got out of the tent (my brave man!) and looked around. He didn’t see anything!  But we could both hear them getting closer.  He shined his light down the hill and still did not see them.  He shined his light toward the bear bag hanging in a tree some distance from the tent, but didn’t see anything.  He began to blow his whistle and we could both hear whatever it was scurrying off in a rush away from us.  He still did not see them! 

The only thing we could think was that whatever it was must have been too short for him to see above the underbrush, maybe turkey? 



Now I was REALLY scared!  So we got up before daylight and hit the trail again.  As we started out, we saw where something had rooted up the ground all around our campsite and all along the trail.  In a little while we met a man who was obviously a hunter who asked us if we had seen any signs of wild hogs this morning.  AH! Yes, that’s what we had heard!  Yes, we had heard LOTS of them and seen plenty of sign.  Mystery solved. 

Now we know why it was called Hogpen Gap!

I determined then that I would not spend the night in the wilderness anymore.  It would have to be a shelter or an established campsite for me!    

Views from today around Levelland Mountain