Day 22 - Fingerboard Shelter.

​Day 22 - Fingerboard Shelter

Starting location: Wildcat Shelter

Ending location: Fingerboard Shelter

Mileage today: 14.5 miles 

Total Mileage: 254.9 miles 

Today’s Photo

The story behind this photo ... 

Today we woke up to more rain falling. We still packed up everything and got on the trail around 7:30 am. The rain fell pretty good till noon and then we basically walked through cloud after cloud. It was in the 50’s all day today. 

After hiking about 2 miles we came to our first serious waterfall. It was pretty amazing to behold. While the boys explored, I filtered some water. 

We finally met mom and Froning for lunch around 1:45 pm after hiking for about 10 miles. It was later than I had hoped but the bouldering was pretty intense with it raining. Legolas fell multiple times. The boys got Nutella sandwiches and Chex mix and fruit. I had a couple sardine wraps. Man were they delicious. 

Then we came to the lake in the above picture. It was so peaceful with the fog. Legolas thought it was the lake at Hogwarts. lol. We could have stayed there a long time, but we still had like 2.5 miles to the shelter. 

Then we came to this cave or so we thought. We actually hiked through it to the lemon squeezer, which is a pretty famous part of the trail. 

This is the “lemon squeezer”. It is a very tight passage. I barely fit through it, but Bombadil had no issues! lol. The boys really enjoyed it. 

Now this part we had to take the blue blaze around. We literally have no idea how anyone got up that way. It was taller than me and really had no place to climb up. Add the fact that it had rained and everything was slippery. I just didn’t want to go to the ER today! lol. 

Just some random things we saw on the trail. We wish we had some googly eyes to put on the rock monster. Then I just love seeing wild mushrooms. I need to learn how to identify them. 

Finally we made it to the shelter around 5:30 pm. Cooked dinner (rice and chicken), changed into dry clothes, hung up the wet clothes to try to dry (probably impossible since we are basically in a cloud with 100% humidity). Legolas is reading Dracula, and the fog and mist are making his book become real! lol. Well off to bed and hopefully we can get stuff dried out tomorrow if it sunny. 

God bless,

Gandalf, Legolas & Bombadil.