Date: 2007-05-23
From: Apple House Shelter

To: Moreland Gap Shelter
Miles today: 18.2
Weather: scattered clouds

Well as you can guess, I didn't sleep all that well. I kept waking up and forcing myself to look at the shelter doorway, expecting some eerie glowing ghost. I don't even want to think about what it would have been like to sleep in this shelter alone last night! Huck and I both got going at about 8am. Route 19E to the town of Elk Park was only .5 miles from the shelter. We needed about 2 days of supplies so we hiked to the road and tried hitching 1.5 miles to a small market. It seemed no one wanted to stop. I mean we looked grungy and smelled awful... so what's the big deal! We ended up walking to the market, buying our supplies and walking back to the trail head. Three miles before we even got on the AT!As we started hiking, we met 4 other thru hikers, who I had met on Roan Bluff 2 days before. They were all slack packing 24 miles to a hostel we planned to hike to tomorrow. I did not catch all of their names but one was called Pinball Wizard from California, and another was Captain Jack from Connecticut (who is a student at UCONN). We ended up hiking with them for most of the morning.The morning hike took us down some old country dirt roads, through pastures, and the usual hard wood forests. We really enjoyed hiking about 2 miles through a stand of hemlock, which made the woods dark and mysterious, and the scent of the hemlock was great. The layers of dead hemlock needles on the trail also act as a nice cushion to the feet. At one point the trail went past a cemetery, and I had this strong desire to see my mother's grave. I made a mental note to place that at the top of my list of things to do after the trail.It had been threatening rain, and later it came down steady and cold. We put our pack covers on and kept marching. Eventually we came to a side trail to a site called Jones Falls. We hiked in to see this and came upon a waterfall cascading down a height of about 50ft. It was a beautiful site, but I was reluctant to take my camera out because of the downpour.The rain eventually died down and at 9 miles we stopped at Mountaineer Shelter for lunch. This shelter is brand new and very nice. It even has a 3 ft. bear figure carved from a log with a chainsaw....the first bear I've seen on the trail so far! Pinball Wizard and Captain Jack joined us for a short while and then continued hiking. About 10 minutes later we started to hoist are packs to continue hiking and the heavens opened up. We proceeded to drop our packs and extend our lunch break in this nice new, but more importantly, DRY shelter. We couldn't help but feel sympathetic for our 2 fellow thru hikers who were now stuck in this very heavy cold rain, with plenty of thunder and lightning mixed in. This rain also eventually passed and we continued on. The afternoon plan was flexible and we were tempted to hike 4 miles to a small hostel because of the wet condition of boots, clothing, and gear. The sun eventually came out and improved our mental and physical state, so we decided to hike to the next shelter, 9 miles away. Nine miles on paper, always seems "doable", however the last 2-3 miles seems like an eternity when you really want to get there. This was no exception, and when I finally arrived at the shelter I was beat. Unfortunately the shelter was full and we had to set up our tents. The up side was someone offered us water to make dinner, and I got a great night's sleep.A nice wet day on the trail.