Date: 2014-04-16
From: Hwy 19E

To: Moreland Gap Shelter
Miles today: 18.9
Weather: clear sky

It is incredible at how quickly the weather changed overnight! Although it was still pretty chilly in the morning, the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky - a complete turnaround from yesterday's hike of doom!We woke up in the morning to enjoy a lovely breakfast spread produced by Mary and her husband - if you stay at this hostel, eat breakfast with them! Mary is an excellent cook and the breakfast had everything you could imagine - french toast to die for, eggs and bacon baked into bread, fruit, homemade cinnamon rolls, breakfast casserole! We ate our fill and then some while dining with Mission and Youngster. It was hard to leave after the delicious breakfast, but we packed our stuff up and moved onto the trail. What a difference in the hiking today! Even after all of that nonsense with the wind, sleet, and snow, we were not sore or hurting so the hiking went really well. The sunshine brightened our spirits as we looked back at the balds we climbed yesterday and the rough memory was pushed into storage (for great stories later on!).Today was a day of spectacular waterfalls! We passed three big falls or cascades during the hiking - Jones Falls, Mountaineer Falls, and Hardcore Cascades. Jones Falls was by far the most impressive of the three, and it served as a great packs off break for us during the hike!We bounced around several groups of hikers today. We passed Finn but only briefly as a little later on he came by us in a steady run. Mission and Youngster started a little behind us but passed us by after our longer stops for the falls and lunch break. We met a couple from Germany and we flip flopped past each other for several miles - after three times, supposedly it is a German tradition to share a beer with someone that you keep running into accidentally! We stopped for lunch at the Mountaineer Falls Shelter - a really cool shelter with a crow's nest for two people to sleep! The shelter was very clean and well-maintained as compared to some of the other shelters we have passed. A great lunch stop.Later in the day, we arrived at the area where our supposed campsite was - we did not see a good camping site for the hammocks. There was no fire ring or signage marking the camping, so we decided to (somewhat begrudgingly) push on to the next shelter - an additional 1.7 miles. It was getting late when we arrived at the shelter, but Mission and Youngster and Thomas and Silvia (Cheese and Chocolate - new trail names!) were there for some company. We quickly got the hammocks set up as the temperature began dropping, and we cooked some dinner in the protection of the shelter. Everyone retired to bed early except for us, and we stoked the fire to warm ourselves up after the long day. We built us a pretty good fire that toasted us up nicely.As we were finishing up dinner, Mary showed up and set up in the shelter. We had first seen her before entering Erwin, and she had just completed her longest day in the best time! She did this all before her 50th birthday tomorrow, so it was a pretty good birthday present! She enjoyed the fire we had built and then we all went to bed - it is going to be a chilly night!