Date: 2023-05-20
From: Meadow

To: Moreland Gap Shelter
Miles today: 16.0

I woke up at 5:54am but was able to have an extremely slow start drinking tea and eating babka, as Sweet Potato¢s cousin came to hike with us for the day! He was super sweet, and SP was extremely happy to see him (in part because he brought us food and a new pair of boots for SP as his were falling apart at the tread, but also you know, familial love yadda yadda). We stopped by Laurel Fork Falls which was stunning - it looked like a supervillain¢s lair brutalist entrance, basically Syndrome¢s lair from the Incredibles. We climbed up to stand under the spray, which was so bracingly cold and powerful. Afterwards we passed a dayhiker (and AT class of 2016) who recommended falls further up the trail as well, which were nice but nowhere nearly as cool as the first falls. The falls made me think of an Icelandic road trip I took with my dad, and how we would stop off to look at waterfalls or ¢foss¢ as they were called. Sidebar - funnily enough, people think thruhiking is sketchy but that trip was so sketchy in parts versus the AT which I¢ve always felt safe on (besides the bears). We both were traumatized by white-knuckle driving through a blizzard that had whiteout conditions and we had to rely on GPS for hours as we couldn¢t see the roads. And then we got trapped in a prairie cabin for New Year¢s with a single packet of spaghetti, sauce, and rye crackers with an assortment of mediocre movies on DVD. But you know what? I felt it was a great exercise in communication where the result was literally life or death, at least it felt that way at the time. We should have just gone to Petra and lived out our Indiana Jones moment. Anyways digression over, moral of the story is that we didn¢t see any Northern Lights and they may or not exist.It was supposed to rain so we stopped at Mountaineer Falls shelter for lunch, after which the cousin headed back to the trailhead. SP and I discussed that while it seemed to threaten rain, it didn¢t seem like it would be a downpour so we decided to risk hiking further to either a campsite or Moreland Gap shelter only 2.5 miles further than that. It was humid with sprinkles the whole day but no actual rain, so that was a good call on our parts to push. While hiking we came across a bench overlooking a picturesque view, and sat down for ¢10 seconds.¢ An hour later we got up and got moving again. But alas SP saw a bear cub climb down a tree and run to its momma, which freaked him out (understandably) so we banged our sticks and shouted to keep them away. He also felt we should press to the shelter since there was bear activity, and despite feeling blah and internally grumbling to myself about having to hike some more, I was glad we did the extra miles to shorten tomorrow¢s hike. We made it to camp at 8:09pm, I speed set up my tent, scarfed down 3 tuna creations (gojuchang and red curry flavors do not mix well with the Cheezits and babka I ate earlier today, and my soul is troubled), and went to bed. It was one of those humid days where you go to bed slimy and you¢re like ¢eh nothing can be done about it, I¢m just gross¢ which are my Least Favorite days as I do not enjoy the slimy feeling.