Day 3: 20 miler

Day number three.  Very cold night.  My dad and I are prepared though with our 0° sleeping bags, liners and puffy hoods, booties, etc.  and we are sleeping amazing out here. Alexi, our seasoned thru hiking partner for the evening agreed on the cold.  We had to ask her if this is colder than your typical night and she said absolutely.  Her water container she left outside her tent was frozen solid, and we did have to sleep with our water filters and our phones in our sleeping bags. So this was going to be a challenging day as we had to stop at Neels gap and get a good meal and also resupply.  Well, this turned out to be a very social day as we met many people and stopped and chatted for a significant amount of time. We met for the third day in a row Highlighter and her husband, who were flip-flopping small section hikes to see the thru hikers.  We had to take a selfie with them as they are so pleasant and such a joy to meet on the trail.  They said we might see you tomorrow.  We also met a couple of thru hikers called Moon Dog and Two Speed.  Loved Two Speed as he said I have two speeds, slow and slower. Everyone is so nice on trail and the day hikers are so nice as well. The views continue to be just stunning. How come nobody told us about Georgia, it is so beautiful. We are really settling in to being out on trail.  My dad and I are really thriving and we’re feeling strong at this time. We stopped at Neels Gap which was almost mile seven for us and spent a total of around two hours.  Great resupply location for sure.  We then hit the trail knowing that we’d have to put in a good 10 miles to get up around 16. One of the two hikers who had thru hiked the trail three times said the stretch leaving Neels Gap was easy. Well, we really enjoyed it, but it certainly was not easy compared to what we had done we felt.  But Highlighter had told us that once we hit Thigpen Gap there was a 14 mile glorious stretch. Highlighter was correct and we knew right away when we were starting that 14 mile stretch. We felt speedy. We hadn’t looked at FarOut to see what campsites and water sources were ahead because we honestly were feeling so good and had plenty of water. The sun was slowly, but surely setting, and the sunset was stunning. Of course, my dad’s headlamp was buried in his bag. But mine was easily accessible. This is the longest stretch without water thus far in this journey. There were also minimal camp sites. We knew it was time to find a campsite and we knew that there was a shelter ahead. When we got to that intersection where the shelter was we could see campers with headlamps down over the hill. At that time we decided to check FarOut as the water source was still three tenths of a mile ahead, and we now needed enough water to cook dinner and have to drink. We had to download the USGS maps on FarOut so that we could see what there was for campsites. We downloaded that and saw that 1.3 miles ahead there was a campsite with four sites and the water source was .3 miles ahead so we made the decision to do that and that would put us at mile 20 for the day so it seemed perfect. The water source was great and we filled up all our water and thus headed to the campsite and it was a beautiful hike to the campsite. When we knew we were close to the campsite, we struggled to find it. But once we did, it was perfect. Right away my dad and I set up the tent and then while he was blowing up our sleeping pads and preparing our gear for the night I cooked dinner. Because of the wind and cold, it took a lot longer tonight to boil the water for dinner, but we knew we needed the calories and nutrition from the hiker meals so we made it a priority. The final thought for the evening was how comfortable we were not knowing where we were gonna sleep hiking in the dark still needing additional water for cooking dinner. This gave us great comfort as we really felt like we were now settling in, and we are so compatible with each other as far as pace and endurance. When we got into the tent and into our quilts, we were so toasty and had no trouble falling asleep that night and both felt like it was the coldest night yet. All the thru hikes we met at Neels Gap were spending a night in town because it was going to be so cold.