Thursday, March 24, 2016 8:06 am
Location: Neel Gap / Mountain Crossings (31.7 miles)

Last night, I set my tent up for the first time outside, which I'm sure looked rather amusing to onlookers. I'm not quite convinced I have it staked correctly, since the connection between the tent and the stakes seems rather flimsy, but it's still here in one piece.

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View from Preaching Rock
Location: Neel Gap / Mountain Crossings (31.7 miles)

Thanks to the terrific lunch I had at Woody Gap, I reached Lance Creek early and with bountiful energy, so I decided to push on to Neel Gap. (While there are two shelters between Lance Creek and Neel Gap, the five miles before Neel Gap requires a bear canister, which I don't have, so stopping before Neel Gap was not an option.)

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Trail Magic at Woody Gap
Location: Woody Gap (20.8 miles)

Lunch at Woody Gap courtesy of a bunch of local hikers. Hot dogs, bananas, brownies, beans, soda, and water! Thanks so much!

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Location: Gooch Mountain Shelter (15.8 miles)

It was warmer last night, and I slept much better. Not sure how much of that was the temperature and how much was using my down coat as a pillow, but either way, I'm feeling much better now than I was last night.

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The Forest
Location: Gooch Mountain Shelter (15.8 miles)

After an extremely arduous hike today, the hardest I've ever done, I made it to the Gooch Mountain shelter around 6-6:30. My dinner of Ramen and Mac & Cheese was a bit of experimentation. My cook pot is not large enough to do the entire bag of M&C all at once, and even with splitting it in half, both the ramen and M&C boiled over. But, I think I have it figured out how to do it tomorrow with less water and less mess.

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