Day 3 Gooch Gap to Neels Gap

Today's miles 14.5.  AT total 31.7

Another fantastic day weatherwise, lots of warm sunshine, around 60°F (15°C) and no wind today.
We were packed up, out of camp and on the trail by 8.45am.
We stopped at Woody Gap for half an hour as we bumped into Fresh Ground, a previous thru hiker with his dog, and 3 German thru hikers whose trail names are Wall E, Amazing Ant and Milk Monster.  We had a lovely chat with them all. They were also heading for Neels Gap today. 
On trail everyone uses trail names rather than their real names.  Some trail names people name themselves, others get given trail names on the trail. My trail name is Crunchie and Nigel's is TimeOut. We thought these up a few months ago, both with double meanings, 1 the chocolate link from my chocolate making days, both Cadburys chocolate bars, and 2 that they both refer to a bit of escapism.

From Woody Gap we headed gradually uphill to Preaching Rock where we had great views to the East.  Continuing through the woods downhill for a while and then uphill again.  It was a long drawn out uphill today towards Blood Mountain, nothing too steep but more tiring than the last two days.   We stopped for a lunch break at Slaughter Creek where we also refilled up with water.  We'd drank twice as much today in the warm weather. From there we thought it was going to be a steep final ascent up to Blood Mountain.  The trail turned out to be easier than what we'd already walked today so was a pleasant surprise and through beautiful dappled sunlit rhododendron forest.
We recorded our brief visit in the Blood Mountain Shelter, a stone built shelter right on the summit and had our photo taken on the summit rock.  It being a warm sunny Saturday there were lots of day hikers out.

Then it was downwards towards Neels Gap and Mountain Crossings where we arrived at 4pm.  A well known landmark on the AT the trail goes through their building. An outdoor gear shop and hiker hostel famous for helping hikers with too much gear and carrying too much weight by giving them a 'shakedown' and advising them what and what not to be carrying.  Perfectly located,  after a few days on trail. We signed their thru hiker register, we were thru hikers number 57 & 58 to come through their shop this year, then had our photo taken to go on their Facebook page.  A few must have already dropped out since Amicalola Falls!  We had heard about 9 thru hikers dropping out already! Only about 15-20% of all prospective thru hikers actually complete the entire trail. People drop out either through illness, injury, family ties, lack of money or a lot just decide the tough thru hiking lifestyle is not for them.

We topped up our food supplies for the next 3 days from their shop then went to the hostel where we are staying the night.  A cheap basic hostel with bunk beds and limited cooking facilities, they rely on hikers using their own equipment I think. The first thing we did was have a lovely shower and rinse a few clothes out.
The owner Logan, cooked some delicious pork chops for us all on his BBQ which were delicious, which we added our own flavoured packet rice for dinner.  We are here tonight with the 3 German thru hikers and 2 other day hikers.  Karl and Mathew made a brief appearance but then disappeared so we don't know where they went.
We managed to get all our gadgets recharged and these blogs updated and posted via WiFi, no phone signal here though.

Another great day, we're really enjoying ourselves. We checked the weather forecast, it looks good, warm still for 2-3 more days but then its due to turn bitterly cold!