Appalachian Trail   Feb 16, 2008 (9 hours 05 minutes)
Day 1	Springer Mountain to Neels Gap (9 hours 5 minutes)	Daily mileage: 30.7	Trip mileage: 30.7
Day 1
Egads and I decided to hike Springer Mountain to Neels Gap as a day hike. We spent the night at Springer Mountain, so we could get an early start on Saturday. Egads broke camp at 5:00am to get a jump on the hike. I ended up sleeping until 7:45am and didn't break camp until 8:30am. The start of the hike was great. The miles were rolling by and I made it to Hawk Mountain Shelter in a little under 2 hours. I'm hiking in new trail runners, and I didn't take the time to 'break em' in. I have hot spots on both feet and several blisters already forming. I threw on some mole skin and headed back out on the trail. Not much happened on the next section. I made it from Hightower Gap to Justus Creek in a little over 1.5 hours, where I stopped to filter some water and have a GU. The trail started to get busy after Justus Creek. I was passing hikers every few minutes including two groups of 20+ hikers. I stopped and talked to an older couple with their two Labs. They had spoken to Egads at Gooch Gap about an hour and a half earlie. I'd made up almost 2 hours of his lead and I was hoping to catch him by Woody Gap. As I continued down the trail, hikers seems to be everywhere. It was a lot busier than I prefer but that's the way it goes. There were a lot of dogs on the trail today. They were all well behaved and I stopped to pet and play with each one of them. I ran ito an adorable Pit Bull puppy as I neared Woody Gap. She had a little backpack on and she couldn't have been any sweeter. She sat at my feet and I reached down to pet her, she gently licked my face. She was the sweetest dog of the day. We stashed a gallon of water at Woody Gap and I filled my bladder and continued on the trail. Egads left me voicemail and I realized he was still 2 hours ahead of me. I knew I couldn't catch him before Neels Gap, so I paced myself and continued on the trail. The GU and candy bars were upsetting my stomach, so I decided to skip any more snacks and push through on fluids only for the remainder of the hike. I passed quite a few backpackers over the next few miles. As I arrived at Bird Gap, a group of Boy Scouts were setting up camp. They had spoken to Egads earlier and were watching for me to pass through. I stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes, as they were curious about some of my past speed hikes. I was enjoying talking to them, but needed to continue on to Neels Gap. I was making my way up Blood Mountain, when I heard a lot of noise from the summit area. As I rounded the last turn, there must have been 40-50 campers spewed all over the area. There were tents everywhere. Literally lined along and in the middle of the trail. The shelter was at capacity as well. Needless to say, I'm glad I hadn't made plans to stay on top of Blood Mountain. Egads was waiting for me at the shelter, or rather on the large rocks next to he shelter. I stopped for a few minutes to make some Gatorade and we chatted with several guys who were up from Atlanta with the kids that were all over the area. I drank some Gatorade and we continued on to Neels Gap. We passed about a dozen people camping on the larege, flat rocky areas on the north side of Blood Mountain. I simply couldn't believe how busy it was today. Since we finished early enough in the day, we decided to skip camping for the night and go ahead and drive back to Atlanta.