19e to moreland gap shelter

it was a great day. the weather was beautiful. warm and sunny all day without almost any wind. the trail was pretty flat and dry.

i woke up a little before 08:00, when free breakfast was served. biscuits and gravy, hash browns, eggs, and pancakes with telephone pole syrup.

after breakfast i packed up and weighed my pack on the hostel scale. 27# without water, 30# with. quick, rocket, and i headed out a little before 10. we hiked together for much of the morning. we took a brief detour to jones falls where we took off our shoes and soaked our feet briefly. the water was freezing, and it went from feeling good to painful in a matter of seconds.

i took off before the others and hiked alone until lunch. we met back up at mountaineer falls shelter and chatted about aqua-blazing in shenandoah. sounds fun.

i hiked the entire afternoon by myself enjoying the weather and trying to take in some memories that i can use tomorrow when it’s supposed to rain a lot.

i stopped .2 miles from moreland gap shelter at a view where i not only had cell service for the first time all day, but could actually see the cell tower. i called and chatted with magz who was in the truck with the dogs about to go to the outlaws for dinner.

sadly, the box with my replacement shoes is not on the way because louis dejoy’s craptastic incarnation of the post office wants $50 to get it to damascus for tuesday. so i’ve got to figure out where to send it.

i got to the shelter at 16:45, and shockingly i was the first to the shelter. kick and rocket arrived about half an hour later and both were shocked that the shelter was empty.

we took over the shelter. tonight it’s me, quick, maestro & lyric (new additions to our group), bugs, and rocket all sleeping in a line. none of us snore. only two other hikers showed up to tent. it seems like we might have hiked out of the bubble of hikers we had been in.

lastly, we’ve been crossing from NC to TN for some time now as the trail follows the border. though yesterday i passed a sign saying “leaving NC”, there was one small switchback today that entered and left NC. today we’re officially past NC and in TN.

some additional photos from today: