Mountains Under Foot

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 68: July 16, 2009
Travel:
From: Eagle’s Nest Shelter, PA
To: Port Clinton, PA
Beginning: 8:30am
Ending: 11:45am
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 8.6
b) other – .3 out of the shelter
c) AT Mile Marker – 1207.2 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Overcast and then got hot and sticky
PM: Still warm and moist, calling for rain tomorrow. Noooooooo….
People: A ton: Caught up with Many Names in town, Frankenfoot, Prof. Mark, Paul (works at Ye Old Backpacker), Caught Coldfeet and Checkpoint who had skipped a large portion of Virginia to get ahead, Crocstar made it into town, Timebomb & Basher, George & Journey. And probably many more…
Animals: I don’t think so.
Money: $15 for lunch, $12 resupply, $10 dinner. $1220 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: The morning consisted of a relatively easy walk with one rock scramble where I had to use my inner mountain goat to get up it. Then the decent into town was brutal, it felt at some points that if I didn’t have my poles I would have landed on my face. Has PA ever heard of switchbacks? The town of Port Clinton is bordered by train tracks on one side and the highway on the other. There was some amount of noise at just about any point in the town. Our first stop was at the Ye Olde Backpacker outfitter where we dropped our packs and headed to the Hotel for lunch. We sat down at the bar with enough time to catch the showcase showdown on the Price is Right. I ordered the Trail Burger which had Bleu cheese, Swiss, and caramelized onions on top of a massive beef patty. It was just what I needed.

PM: Many Names and Prof. Mark came in and sat down with us. Everyone ended up having dessert, the brownie overboard simply looked too good. The rest of the afternoon Spoon and I spent hanging out with Paul at the outfitter. I was able to get some photos uploaded, catch up on emails, journals, and Cat’s blog. We were basically killing time because our only guaranteed ride was the shuttle service from the outfitter. Around 6:40pm, Tammy got back and gave us a ride into Hamburg, the home of the largest outfitter in the nation. Cabela’s store in Hamburg is 250,000 square feet of hunting and fishing supplies but sadly lacks a great hiker supply. Anyhow we got our groceries and headed back for some dinner at the hotel. I had another awesome burger and Crocstar joined us in the feast. By the time we were done the restaurant was closing and it was past our bedtime. We headed down to the Pavilion, a large covered picnic area where a bunch of hikers had gathered for the night, to get some zzzz’s

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 67: July 15, 2009
Travel
From: Rausch Gap Shelter, PA
To: Eagle’s Nest Shelter, PA
Beginning: 7:45am
Ending: 9:15pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 33.3
b) other – .3 out of Rausch Gap, .2 to and from William Penn Shelter, .2 to and from 501 Shelter, .3 to Eagles Nest Shelter.
c) AT Mile Marker – 1198.6 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Nice weather, sunny but not too hot.
PM: Overcast with temps dropping.
People: George w/ Gracie the dog, Journey, Grizzila, Many Names, Prof. Mark.
Animals: Just the tiny flying ones that like your blood.
Money: $0, $1183 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Woke up before anyone in the shelter, probably because they were up late last night entertaining themselves with the haunted graveyard near camp. Journey beat us to be first in the trail, but we quickly passed her and steamed on ahead. Just before Pa.443 road crossing was a cooler full of Capri Sun and water that we happily took a sip and a break next to the stream. We left as George and Journey were approaching the ‘magic’. A couple more miles and we got to Swatara Gap and it’s beautiful, German engineered bridge. Once across we found ourselves on a badly paved road leading us under I-81 and straight up the following mountain. This took us to the ridge that we would be riding all the way to Port Clinton.

PM: A stop for lunch and recuperation at William Penn Shelter around 12:40pm. Put in a decent pace, but we would have to keep pushing hard if we wanted to make it. Climbing out of the shelter side trail we saw George taking a lunch break as well, we said “Hi” and moved on. Flat-ish hike all the way to the 501 Shelter that touts pizza delivery and a solar shower along with a generous sized shelter with, count them, four walls! We had enough time to fill our water before returning to the trail. The rest of the afternoon was hardcore hiking on relatively flat ground. We had a little up after we got down to Hertlein campground but then it was smooth sailing to the shelter. Spoon had had to perform some repair to his feet at lunch because of a blister that appeared yesterday and some new developments today. So on top of being in a ‘not so great’ of a mood from that he was now suffering from some excess ankle/foot pain. He wanted to stop at one of the springs before the shelter and camp, which I wasn’t too thrilled about, but would yield to whatever he was comfortable with. One look at the mosquito infested campsites and he found the energy to make it to the shelter. When we got there everyone had gone to bed except Grizilla, who had taken a nap earlier that day. We made dinner and Spoon wasn’t feeling so great so he went straight to bed while I sat finishing the last few bites of dinner. My body was feeling pretty wrecked after all those miles so it didn’t take long to get to sleep.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 66: July 14, 2009
Travel:
From: Clarks Ferry Shelter, PA
To: Rausch Gap Shelter, PA
Beginning: 7:45am
Ending: 5:20pm
Number if miles hiked:
a) Trail – 24.3
b) other – .3 to shelter
c) AT Mile Marker – 1166.1 cumulative
Weather: Perfect hiking weather. Unseasonably cool for PA this time a year I’ve heard.
People: Trampoline and Siren (We had lunch where they had eaten lunch at Clarks Valley) You, Aquafresh, George, Bam-Bam, Girl in sky, Manimal and many more…
Animals: Nope
Money: $0, $1183 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM & PM: Pennsylvania is really flat. How flat you ask? We hiked 24 miles and only had one uphill and the rest was a breeze. I can safely say we hiked the whole day and nothing happened, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We spent the whole day catching up and passing people who were in the next shelter from where we started.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 65: July 13, 2009
Travel:
From: Duncannon, PA
To: Clarks Ferry Shelter, PA
Beginning: 5:30pm
Ending: 7:15pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 4.5
b) other
c) AT Mile Marker – 1141.8 cumulative
Weather:
AM & PM: Awesome all day. Sunny but not too hot.
People: All the people from last night and the people at the shelter: Free child, Hot Feet, Basher, Ziggy, Shameless, Creep. Crocstar, Crow, Pilgrim, Highway man, Lion King (first person to thru-hike American Discovery trail)
Animals: None
Money: $15 for room at the Doyle Hotel, $12 for lunch, $21 for resupply.
$1183 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Had a great night’s sleep and when I woke up I grabbed my iPod to catch up on the journal. After a while Spoon woke up and we were craving food. The only problem was trying to leave the hotel. The door downstairs to the bar was closed and locked and there wasn’t any other apparent exits. We fumbled around for awhile until we finally figured out that there were stairs around the corner from the balcony. Good thing too, because the next step would have been the fire escape. We walked across the street to Goodies Restaurant for some grub. I had a western omelet and a Texas pancake, which was Texas toast dipped in pancake batter and thrown on the griddle. Spoon went after the pancakes which were massive, I’m talking an inch thick and the size of a dinner plate, and also ordered an egg platter. Needless to say he hardly finished his breakfast and ended up walking out with a couple pounds of food. Spoon went upstairs to take advantage of the couple hours we were stuck waiting for the bar to open by taking a nap. I spent some time on the balcony finishing up my journals then went upstairs to get Spoon moving. We still had time to kill so we went to check out the library, only to find that it was closed. Awesome. Back to the Doyle to wait around outside with all the other hikers for the doors to open up. Once the lights went on I went inside to pay the bill and check on some computer stuff. Then the day sort of disappeared.

PM: Spoon went off to get ice cream with Hot Feet while I was working on the computer. The website needs lots of work from me as well to keep things running. I added a suggestions and contacts link at the bottom of the page in addition to other improvements. By the time Spoon got back it was getting late and then Pilgrim showed up and they got involved in a game of chess. Crow and Spiceman(?) arrived as well as Highway man. It got so late that we just decided to wait until 4pm for the shuttle to the grocery. We resupplied on food and met Lion King, who is a small legend in the hiking world and very knowledgeable, while standing outside the grocery waiting for our ride back to the Doyle. When we got back to the bar we were surprised to see Crocstar sitting at the bar. We hadn’t heard from him in a long time and feared he had gotten off the trail. Well he had gotten off just before Harpers Ferry for five days to celebrate the Fourth of July with some family. He also told us that Sal had come off the trail with knee problems, bummer. Once we were back we quickly repacked our food, filled water, hugged Vickey the owner, and left town. It was close to a mile and a half out of town with half a mile just crossing the bridge of the Susquehanna River. Along the way we got smiles from the street corners, an 18-wheeler gave us a toot of his horn and waved while we crossed the river, and then just before heading into the woods we got a honk from a truck and the guy yelled, “Good luck boys!” I gotta say Duncannon was a really hiker friendly town. Since it was so late leaving town we just hoofed it up to the first shelter where a bunch of people from last night had gathered. The party just picked back up from where it left off.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 64: July 12, 2009
Travel:
From: Boiling Springs, PA
To: Duncannon, PA
Beginning: 10:30am
Ending: 7:45pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 25.7
b) other
c) AT Mile Marker – 1137.3 cumulative
Weather:
AM & PM: Sunny but not too hot. Heard this was unusually cooler weather than normal. I can’t complain.
People: Leap frogged most of the day with Trampoline and Highway Man. Once we got to the Doyle there were just too many hikers to name, probably 20 or more were here tonight.
Animals: Nada
Money: $0, $1135 cumulative
Notes of the day:
AM: Rolled out of bed late-ish for a hiker but when you have clean sheets and a mattress, life is good. An AYCE breakfast buffet was spread before us in the main building that we happily gorged ourselves on while watching Food Network on their flat screen. We checked out and packed out to get back on the trail. The next 10 miles took us through more farmland and pastures. Thankfully we were under the cover of shade for the most of it or it would have been unbearable, especially with the lack of water through this section. To sum up the terrain of the day: Hiked across the valley, up the side of the ridge to Darlington Shelter, then back down to hike across another valley, then back up the side of another ridge that we rode until Cove Mountain Shelter, and finally back down the side to Duncannon.

PM: Spoon and I had a makeshift lunch out of leftover pizza, peanut nut butter & crackers, jerky, and Snickers at Darlington Shelter. This, like most shelters in PA, was impressive, the privy even had a sign that said ‘Taj Mahal’ over the door to remind you of its grandness. It was getting close to 4pm and the Doyle Hotel (our place for the night) closed its doors at 8pm so we had to make some serious time for the next 11.4 miles if we wanted to make it. Naturally, Spoon and I came flying into town with 15 minutes to spare and the bar was rocking so hard the place ended up staying open until almost 10pm. We got our key to the last room available but Spoon stayed down in the bar to grab some beers and socialize and I sat at the computer working on like five different things at once. The lady running the place finally kicked us out shortly after 10pm and I was so tired I just got a quick shower and passed out. Spoon, however, could be heard on the balcony all the way up on the third floor long after I went to bed.

From Hazard’s notes:
Day 63: July 11, 2009
Travel:
From: James Fry Shelter @ Tagg Run, PA
To: Boiling Springs, PA
Beginning: 7:00am
Ending: 11:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 12.2
b) other – .2 back to AT from shelter
c) AT Mile Marker – 1111.6 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Sunny and not too hot. Beautiful hiking weather.
PM: Rain in the afternoon and a storm rolled through in the evening.
People: Hot Feet & other girl (sectioning), Manimal & his hiking partner, Trampoline & Kate, Grizzila, and a few others. We are starting to catch up to the bubble and there are hikers everywhere.
Animals: Turtles & Squirrels. PA is lacking in animal encounters.
Money: $16 for pizza, $13 for half the room at Allenberry, $20 for AYCE buffet at the resort, $1135 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: We woke up just after 6am still feeling groggy from last night. Quickly packed some calories into our bodies and started the race to Boiling Springs. We had until noon to get to the post office or be screwed and have to spin our wheels in town until Monday. Starting out the trail was perfect, easy, gentle slopes, on a soft cushy path through the woods. Then things got tough. On the one day we needed to be somewhere was the one day we had two fairly steep hills to climb. To make things more interesting, on top of the first one was a half mile rock labyrinth that had the trail twist and turn around huge boulders directed by arrows painted on the rocks. The whole time I wasn’t sure if it was more hilarious how crazy this section was or just evil. Anyhow, once that part was over we came down to a road only to head straight back up to the top of Center Point Knob. A sign on a tree said it was 3.2 to Boiling Springs and my watch said it was 10:30am so we were going to cut this one really close. After coming off the Knob it was all field walking to town. We wandered through the middle of mostly corn fields, exposed to the sun, with the temperatures rising. Finally we got to the outskirts of town and crossed over the railroad tracks and the bridge that every town seems to have. Luckily, some women from the local church were handing out cold bottles of water along the trail that ran next to the lake and I gladly accepted, thanked them, then apologized for not being able to stick around due to the tight schedule. Just beyond the lake was the post office where Spoon had already collected our packages and was diving in like a boy at Christmas. I hear him yell from across the street, “New boots!” and I can’t help but get excited. The difference between boots you’ve hiked 1100 miles in and new boots is like night and day. It was such a fantastic feeling to put those on for the first time. Special thanks to Lowa for providing us with these replacements. My mom also sent my old phone so now I have phone contact again, but the phone will probably remain off and in my dry bag unless I’m using it. We headed back across the street to the ATC Mid-Atlantic office where Hot Feet and a bunch of other hikers were hanging out.

PM: We socialized and had a good time until it was very necessary to get some lunch. So we grabbed our stuff and walked up the street to the pizza shop for some cheesy fries and a large sausage pizza. We couldn’t even finish all of the pizza so we had it wrapped up. Back to the ATC to figure out what our next move will be. It turned out there was a sign for Allenberry Resort and Playhouse that advertised a hiker price of $25 bucks for a double room which seemed unreal and much better than camping in some old lady’s backyard. I gave them a call for directions and they were for real and just down the road. Walking down the driveway we could tell we didn’t belong in this “Pinky’s up” establishment. Allenberry produces all of their plays in house and the actors all live in the buildings surrounding the property. While doing laundry we even met a lot of the crew: Nells the master carpenter and light engineer, Marc the sound designer and engineer, and the assistant stage manager. The whiteboard sign upon entering the registration building said: “Welcome Class of ‘59″ and there was some retirement group there as well. So this was a real classy joint filled with old people. The rest of the day involved an AYCE dinner buffet and catching up on the blog since I had skipped the past couple days. We met two other hikers staying at Allenberry, Trampoline and Kate (forget her trail name but she was sectioning for a week or so while visiting Trampoline) who recognized us as not old or in nice clothing so we must have been hikers. They pulled up some chairs and we chatted a bit. After dinner Spoon jumped in bed for a nap around 7pm and woke up just before 10pm and the end of the old school version of Battlestar Galactica on the Retro TV channel that I was watching. I ended up getting roped into a really long conversation with my mom and didn’t get to sleep until midnight. (*mom’s note- he called me, LOL)

Quote of the day: “You know you’ve been hiking the trail a long time when you have no idea where you are on the weather map.” – Hazard, while watching the Accuweather forecast.