Date: 2019-03-14
From: Long Hill Road 

To: Morgan Stewart Shelter
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: light snow

I woke up super excited for this day. Baby Girl and I will be full packing and overnighting on the trail tonight.  We got on trail by 7:15am. Baby Girl hit the ground running. She was the leader pretty much all morning. She hiked us right up to Ralph¢s Peak Hikers Cabin. I¢ve been there before. In 2016 myself, Papa Big Swig, and our grandson CJ were trail angels at that shelter.  I met my very first through hiker there. His name was Zorko. He took some blueberries and fresh water. I remember feeling like I was talking to a movie star!  The privy there is nice. Stocked with TP and everything! I came out of the privy to find Baby Girl in tears. She had called her mom and told her she was scared to overnight. It¢s too late now, she¢s out here. I really wasn¢t very sympathetic.  We hiked on and she cheered up as a big skein of geese came honking by.  This part of the forest was a little depressing. Many many trees were down. It was like a tree graveyard. The graveyard went on for a couple of miles. I wondered if there had been a blight, or maybe even tornado type winds. Several of them were just uprooted lying on the. ground. Whatever it was, it made me sad.  Eventually we hiked out of the graveyard and started up Hosner Mountain. On the way up we had a great view of some beautiful New York farmland.  Then we carefully came down, and waited for Papa to bring us a couple things we had forgotten.  It was a nice little visit. We sat in the vehicle and ate our lunch. He had brought us pop to drink. I love that guy!!  From lunch we started going UP. There were switchbacks, but our full bellies, and full packs left us huffing and puffing during the climb.  The next couple of miles gave us a few unique things to look at. Baby Girl had never seen a tree growing right up out of rock before. She was intrigued. We also saw a field fully lined with rock walls. There have been more rock walls than ever in this part of my hike. A lot of the snow is melted now. However, it seems every one of our UPs are snow covered.  We were just finishing an up on some boulders when we ran right into a lone hiker. He said he was just out for the afternoon, and said were only 6 or 7 minutes from our shelter. After full-packing all day we were so happy to drop pack at Morgan Stewart Shelter. We quickly found the water source, filled our bags, and set up camp. As the sun went down, the wind picked up. I¢m not sure how low the temp dropped, but it was cold with all of that wind. To help block the wind, we decided to ¢shamp¢. That¢s Shelter Camp. We pitched our tent right inside the shelter. On a Thursday, in the winter time during a wind storm, I never in a million years imagined we would have visitors at the shelter with us...but we did! In the midst of this wind here came two hikers. They had parked their car about a mile north and were planning a little A.T. adventure.  We had pitched our tent off to one side so thankfully there was plenty of room. One of our visitors was trail named Bacon. He was a through hiker last year.  Bacon and I had trail talk while his buddy built a roaring fire in this wind. I was a little concerned, but they both tended to it properly.  Baby Girl and I said goodnight early. We climbed in our tent and were asleep shortly past hikers midnight, 8pm. Until Next Time Blue Raccoon (2018/2019)Where¢s your faith?