Mountains Under Foot

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.