We may have gotten lost and ended up night hiking in the rain a few nights ago...
Yep, we had an 'epic'
In trying to make Lambert Meadow shelter after a late summit of McAffees Knobon a cloudy day (photos) we found ourselves turned around at Tinker Cliffs. The trail scampered up through some large boulders but we got distracted by an adorable baby bunny rabbit and walked down a trail to the cliffs' base. As we hiked under overhangs and through rock tunnels we realized we had lost the official trail. But instead of turning back we kept 'exploring' eventually blazed our own trail out and back up to the AT. There may have been some rock climbing and crawling involved...
Then it started raining...
Then it got dark...
As we hit the AT we just picked a direction, hoping it would take us north (less than 2mi to the next shelter) and not back to where things had originally gone awry. As we ran down the trail, we came to a fork where I all three paths were marked with white blazes! WTF?! A poorly pointed sign made us more sure of one path than the others, so we took it.
It ended up being right in the end, thankfully, and there was room in the shelter when we got there! Crisis averted, adventure had!
The following day was a 9mi hike into Daleville, VA where the people are extremely friendly and the banana pudding is free!
I did the same thing at the cliffs! I could hear everyone up top and was about to miss the sunset so I climbed.
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