Stover Creek Shelter to Gooch Mountain Shelter

Appalachian Trail, 12.2 miles

What a day! It kicked my tail. Lots of ascents and descents that never seemed to end. I am so thankful to be at the shelter. Keith ended up here too, about half an hour ahead of me, along with a very quiet young couple and a sort of loud blow-hard type guy who calls himself "Black Cloud" (!). (This business of trail names is so bizarre to me!) He is a piece of work; I'll leave it at that.

There is some sort of military base near the trail and today as I was sitting by a creek, taking a break, I watched five astonishingly loud Blackhawk helicopters fly directly overhead, very low. That was about all the wildlife (!) I saw today.

Though it continues to be overcast, I was thankful again for no rain today.

The Gooch Mountain Shelter is new and nice -- it has a loft and nice picnic table and large overhanging roof. This shelter (and the Stove Creek shelter I stayed in last night) has a cable system nearby which you can use to hang your food out of reach of bears. I'm guessing all the shelters have this, at least the ones in Georgia. I hope so, anway.