Date: 2016-05-06
From: Dennis Cove Road -- Kincora

To: Mountaineer Shelter
Miles today: 15.9
Weather: scattered clouds

Not getting on the trail till 9 o'clock -- that's late for me. So many people in the hostel sleeping in ¢ that meant it was a hard place to get going in the morning. Sleeping, eating, & common spaces are all together, which means it's hard to turn the lights on, which means it's hard to find stuff, and packing is difficult. I spent some time looking for a sock this morning -- like maybe it got eaten by the dryer or something. As it turned out, it hadn't even gotten into the wash. At least I found it. But then I left my phone charger plugged into the wall!In the morning, I even got to meet Bob Peoples!Wet morning after raining all night, but it didn't rain all day on the mountain.I guess one learning from yesterday should be not to let all my clothes get wet at a time when I need all my clothes at night to keep warm. I really HAD to make it to the hostel -- not that there was any doubt, but as it was, I got in after 8:00. I should put my poncho on sooner even in very light rain because even if the clothes get a little bit wet, they'll dry out under the poncho as I hike. Cold morning. After going up the first Mtn, there were two miles of burnt area from the fire a couple of weeks ago; so it's not very pretty. For a couple of hours, I had been getting estimates of 3 miles to the next shelter, Moreland gap. Funny how these estimates work: sometimes all high, sometimes low. And it doesn't tell me how long it's going to take ME to get there anyway. Once I was finally on the downhill slope, it went pretty fast. I stopped at Moreland Gap shelter to fix some lunch -- sweet and sour pork -- which I then took with me. Holding a warm bag warms my hands, eating it warms my insides, climbing up the mountain at the same time warms the rest of me. Plus a little more sunshine. I finally began to warm up at 2:30 in the afternoon.Only discouraging thing was finding out that Mountaineer Falls shelter was still 9 more miles and I'd only gone 6. If I could go 2 miles an hour that would take me till 7 o'clock. Recalling that there's only one big Mountain between me & the shelter & then the rest is lower areas with some ups and downs, I hoped I could go faster. Well the problem with figuring out the trail is I can't read the map without getting out my reading glasses because the print is so small and I can't enlarge it on my phone because ever since I upgraded the operating system the Adobe won't let me do that.Someone told me its supposed to be 70 tomorrow. I would settle for fifties. I've concluded that 45 degrees and sunny is really nice hiking weather but 45 degrees and cloudy & rainy is not. A few sprinkles at 4:45; then the sun was out again. Definitely getting warmer.After a little stronger burst of showers around 5:30 or 45 the rain stopped [but still plenty wet], & sun came out for the rest of the evening. There were at least a couple of miles of rhododendrum thickets with mud, where I slipped a number of times. Certainly were a lot of people camping at various places along the trail. Passing a nice-looking campsite site along the way, I hoped there would be some farther along in case I didn't quite make it to the shelter.This section got lengthened 4-5 miles some years back, but there are not many elevation changes; just lots of ins and outs of the various a little valleys going to the river.Hikers met: Shake & Bake, Badger, Indie, Rumble-Junk, Stretch, Duchess[Neth.], no name [Eng.], Pyro, Jesse's Girl, T-Rex, Dog-Walker, Fresh-Breath, Turtle, Smurf, Arkansas Traveler, Rocky, Scarab, Shaman, On-Point, Diesel, Sneaky, Otter, Slim Jim, Beaugeois, Sailor Jerry, No-Worries, OD, Footage,(2 Ger.), Exo, O.E., Greybeard, Roshi, Storm Crow, Bandana [Jap.] Little-Lucky & Flames, Squirtle, John the Baptist, Tater, Monarch, Calorie, Turnip & Nora [Jap.], Wet-Tent, Crock, Sour Straw and Sauerkraut [the Sours], Cautious, Face-Plant, Pocket-Biscuit. Camping at a Creek, Lonestar, Moon-Fire & Moose Dancer, 5 slack-packers, then Wild Card, Owl, Southwind, Silent Bob, {#65} who told me it was only a mile to shelter. He was just about right!However, I still had trouble finding the trail to shelter. It's a blue-blaze only a few feet after the sign that says "Tenting"; so I assumed that path had to do with the camping area. Just a little later, another blue-blaze trail led nowhere. Going on, I came to the falls, with enough light to get some pictures. I remembered the shelter to be North of the falls on the trail, but since I hadn't seen a sign, I went on a bit. The terrain began to change, so I finally turned around. All this took me an extra half hour; so it was 9:00 & dark by the time I got to the shelter. There WAS a sign by that first blue-blaze, but it faces NOBOs, not SOBOs [like many things on the Trail]. Everyone was in bed already. I found a place on the second level & was in bed before 9:30.