#128 Bryant Ridge Shelter to Marble Springs Camp Site - Day 62: ATMM 762.3 to ATMM 779.6
There’s been this wild rumor floating around for years among my friends that Sprawl is loud when doing just about everything. Who knows how these things get started but.....
5/2/22.
The sun shines on the high ridge above us. Its brown bare trees glow orange in the morning sun, a sharp contrast to the deep blue sky beyond them.
Our shelter is situated tightly at the base of two mountains. Very little sky is seen, whether sunny or cloudy. The promise of a cool and clear day inspires everyone.
Leaving Bryant Ridge Shelter, Rolo points to a pair of camp shoes under an empty bunk and says, “No Steps forgot her camp shoes. Not yet knowing the true story behind the shoes I strap them to my pack in an attempt to return them to her.
She began hiking much earlier than I did this morning, making my attempt to catch up to her nearly impossible. I tell Abe, who is half my age and five-eighths my weight, to let her know I have them when he catches up to her. I was hoping he’d offer to carry them to her but he didn’t.
I catch up to Pebbles higher up the mountain side. She tells me the story of the shoes as we hike together. She’s been reading about them in the shelter journals.
One shoe was accidentally left at Cove Mountain shelter. The owner purposely left the second shoe at Bryant Ridge Shelter. After all, what good is one shoe to two feet? Someone else decided to take the forgotten shoe to Bryant Ridge Shelter to reunite the pair.
I decide to leave them inside of Cornelius Creek Shelter. I place the shoes inside the shelter with a little note tucked inside them that reads, “We no longer have an owner, yet we are progressing nicely up the Appalachian Trial”.