Norovirusville

Leaving Neel Gap was beautiful. There was this prefect view of the valley and mountains off in the distance. I was feeling great. My left toe felt completely healed and my right felt much better. It was a great morning. It had been raining the past 3 nights so the trail was pretty wet but i was booking it!

The view on top of Wolf Laurel Top was very pretty too. I like the name, it sounds like my kind of mountain.

We ran into some trail magic at Tesnatee Gap. The 2 guys running it were really nice. I got some hot chocolate and treats. I wish they had some healthy options though. I could really go for some veggies or a sandwich.

As the day went on there was starting to be more and more leaves on the trees. It's still pretty bare in most sections though. I saw a salamander while taking a lunch break, it crawled out right by my feet and ran off before i could take a picture. I also saw a blue butterfly.

I ended up stubbing my bad toe really hard about halfway into the day. I was limping the rest of the day. My toe is so swollen and my nail is so raised I think the nail base inside my toe possibly severed when I stubbed it. It hurts so much and it doesn't look good. And to top it off I burnt most of my scalp pretty bad from the sun. I started wearing a bandana for sun protection.

We were warned that low gap shelter and the surrounding area around had a Noro virus outbreak and to avoid it. Noro virus is suppose to be a flu from hell that lasts about 2 days. It's very common on the AT and in the shelters. The whole group of us joked about going to norovirusville last night, all wanted to camp either before or after it. I ended up camping at a camp site a little ways father with a different group of people to avoid contaminated water sources.

I hung my first bear bag today. I had help figuring it out but i feel pretty darn solid on setting it up now! Half the people camped here didn't hang bags and are leaving them in their tents which is quite concerning.  Those who did ended up hanging them in camp rather than 200ft outside of camp because there's no point when the smell of food is already in camp.

It ended up being a 15.4 mile day

Tonight I'm camped at Cold Springs Gap which is mile 46.8 with 2143 left to go.