AT Journal Day 13

March 17th - Day 13 - NOC to Brown Fork Gap Shelter
The uphill out of the NOC is one of the hardest on the trail. Whether its the terrain or the relative inexperience of the person hiking it, its eight miles up and its raining today.

Live - n - Learn resting atop Cheoah Bald

I meet Handsome Dan and Happy Feller at Stecoah Gap. Someone left some fresh fruit on a picnic table here and I help myself. Right after Stecoah Gap there is a section of trail called Jacob's Ladder which is just very steep, steeper than anything I've encountered so far. At the shelter we meet a group of hikers from Moorehead State University.  The student s from Moorehead share their leftover pad thai and make s'mores for us. As a thru I can't turn down any of it. This interaction is also nice because neither Live or I would have taken the time to build a fire tonight, we are both exhausted. To sit around an effort-free fire and converse with people I've just met is great. Meeting new people everyday, and meeting people you wouldn't talk to in "normal" life is a really rewarding part of the trail. Travelling in general opens you up to a new way of approaching and interacting with people. This helps me a lot, it kind of forces me into new social interaction, which is never a bad thing.