Month: May 2016

We did have the most excellent weather today, but it was not starting out that way in the morning.  We awoke to a thick fog that had some of the smaller local airports shut down until 10 am.  The trees were thick with dew and dropping rain on us as we broke camp atop Peters mountain.  We were on the trail shortly after 7 am.

Hiking in the fog was not bad at all.  We did miss several viewpoints because of it, but the temperature was good and a cool breeze kept us comfortable without jackets.  The terrain was a bit rocky, but nothing too slippery.  The fog broke for us just after 9 am and then from that point on it was blue skies and cool gentle breezes all day long.  It was very humid but comfortable.

We broke for an early lunch about 10:30 by the side of a trout stream where we saw two fisherman, but other than them, we did not see a soul all day long.  It was quite nice, but we did expect some of the Duncannon crowd to pass us, but no one did.

We left the stream just after 11 and headed up a long two mile climb, the only significant climb of the day.  We generated quite a sweat on the way up and loaded up with water because the guide book said there was none for the next 9 miles to the shelter.  The guide book lied.

I have been using the ALDHA guide for years since I am an ALDHA member and members get a free electronic copy of the guide.  I have always printed it out in small sections and carried only what I needed.  It is the official guide endorsed by the ATC.  But I am also carrying the AWOL southbound guide mainly for the flop portion of the flip flop.  There are over half a dozen water sources along the way and AWOL had indicated nearly all of them.  If I had known about them I would not have lugged 4 liters of water up a 1500 ft climb.  That’s eight pounds just in water.  Sheesh.  The AWOL guide is a full book and I’m not up to the point where I want to cut it up yet so for now I am taking pictures of the pertinent pages and I will view from my phone and then just take new pictures every few days as needed.

Once we finally got up to the top of the climb, we found out that the horse-shoe trail terminates right at the AT at the top of our climb.  That trail heads all the way to Valley Forge and passes just a half mile from Karen’s cousins house.  Now I know a 100 mile side trip I can take one day.

The rest of the day was mostly downhill and not too rocky or muddy which was nice for a change.  We made good time and hit the Rausch Gap shelter just after 5pm.  We went to the shelter to get spring water and no one was there but we are camped next to a pretty sizable stream.  If the water were not so cold there are many pools that would be good for swimming.

We are both pretty tired from a long day of hiking.  Our distance today was about 17 miles.  Karen’s feet bothered her early in the day but warmed up quickly.  We both have sore feet but it looks like the blisters are in check and may subside soon.  Other than feet, we are doing well physically.

We still have not seen another hiker today, we have eaten our dinner, cleaned up, and are bedded down for the night.  We are expecting rains to come in around midnight and stick around most of the day tomorrow, but we do not have cell service here, so there’s no way to know if the forecast has changed since this morning.  Most of the day has been without cell service which is odd because we have had excellent service all throughout the trip so far.  It makes little difference if it rains or not because we will still have to get up and hike.  If we don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.

Much improved weather today.  We were able to grab a hot breakfast at the diner next to the hotel (cheese steak omelette and pancakes) before getting a shuttle ride back out to the bridge to catch the trail again.  We left at a leisurely 9 am.

We had spent the morning repacking things and making one more adjustment to Karen’s pack.  We put one more layer of foam in the hip belt and it looks like it is finally riding at the correct height on her back.  She may look homeless (no offense to the homeless out there) but it seems to be working well as she did not complain of any shoulder pain all day today.  Foot pain is a different story.

We loaded up on blister packs at the Walmart in Carlisle and good thing.   She has had a blister on one of her small goes that we had surgical tape on but finally put a blister bandage on at the hotel.  We also put on a fresh heel bandage on her left heel which worked for a while until her heel started getting sore further up.  We stopped and put a regular bandage on it and tied her shoe into a heel lock lace which seemed to help for a while.  We ended up stopping again in an hour to put a blister bandage on it and that did not seem to do the trick.  It is inflamed so we stopped early and she is going to take ibuprofen tonight to take down the swelling. The heel lock lace also did not seem to do much.

My feet have been a little sore and I used a blister bandage on my left heel after our day of rain and the right one got sore but not bad enough to put a bandage on it.  The bandage actually wore through and stuck to my sock when i removed it last night.  Today they are slightly sore but no blisters and no bandages all day.  I may be over the blister hump now if our feet can stay dry for a few more days.

And speaking of dry, today was finally dry.  It was barely chilly in the morning crossing the bridge but the climb up the mountain out of the valley warmed us very quickly.  It was overcast all day and hazy with perhaps ten mile visibility again but otherwise the weather was perfect for hiking.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a mirror copy with rain coming at midnight.

The climb out of town was a little steep and quite rocky at the top.  The first shelter was only three miles from town but it took a full two hours to get there.  It was also off trail a short ways and it was only 11am so we just walked right past it.  There were lots of rocky vantage points and the view was good but marred by the haziness.  The trail all day was a mix of easy roads and difficult rocks.

We passed a group of about thirty school kids that I would guess to be about 8th grade.  They were at one of the rocky points about two miles from the next road and they were eating their lunch.  We did not stop to talk as they were preoccupied with their lunches.

Once we got to the road where they had started, we saw their school bus and stopped for lunch.  We also noticed that they had left a cooler full of drinks and food right beside the trail.  We supplemented our bran muffins lunch from the diner with Gatorade, apples, and a honeybun.  About two miles after that road we met another bunch of school kids but these seemed to be 5th graders.  We had been sitting at one of the overlooks when they stumbled upon us.

We felt like fish in an aquarium.  “Are you real hikers?”, “What are your trail names?”, “Where did you start?”  The questions came fast and furious.  And when another kid asked the same question all the others answered in unison for us.  One of the kids even had a trail name – Buffalo.

After the interaction with the kids, we got to thinking about our trail names again.  We never really liked Blitzo and Gomez.  We were hoping we would have fellow hikers rename us and even asked for names.  The problem is that we really don’t get to see the same people more than a few times.  We are faster than the other flip floppers and slower than the northbounders so we are essentially hiking alone.  The person we have seen the most we just refer to as “The Austrian”. He is probably close to our age and has a very thick German accent and is hiking with a Siberian husky.  The dog is super mellow and seems to be a perfect companion but hurt his paw a few days back so they have been hiking slower than the other NOBOs and just about keeping pace with us.  We camped with him the night before last and saw him several times yesterday.  We think he is about ten miles ahead of us now but we might catch up with him in a few days if he is not able to speed up.

So Karen decided to give us new names today.  She started out with The Professor and Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island.  We liked it but the Professor really doesn’t suit me so I thought maybe Gilligan and Mary Ann would be better, as I am more of a Gilligan.  After dinner I thought of Thurston and Lovie.  Karen likes that one, too so that one might stick.  We shall try them both out over the next few days and see which ones we like better.

The second shelter we came to today was one I remember well – Peters mountain shelter.  I remember it because it sleeps 20 hikers and has a 300 rock step trail down to water.  The school kids were there an hour before us and had filled three gallon jugs for the hikers.  I will really never forget it now, because just yesterday someone tried to burn it down.  They set fire to the wood chips in the privy, a plastic barrier fence that was protecting a revegetation area and a tarp that was protecting one side of the shelter.  The shelter was not too seriously damaged but soot was all over the first floor.  Another hiker who was there said that earlier hikers had come upon the shelter and saw the guy actually setting the fires.  He ran away as the hikers put out the fire.

I know shelters burn down every once in a while, but I had always assumed it had been someone being careless and let something get out of hand and not blatant arson.

With Karen’s sore foot we only hiked another mile past the shelter and are camped at the side of the ridge.  We cooked early and are in bed at 7 PM.  We saw some non hiker walk past us about a half an hour ago and then walk back a few minutes later.  He did not have a can of gas in his hand, luckily.  Wish us pleasant dreams.

Not so great weather today.  It started raining just before we woke up so this was the first day packing up in the rain.  Luckily it was a very light rain so we did not get too wet but it was a good practice of the new setup.  We keep the tarps separate from the hammocks so we can leave the tarps up until the very last minute while we take down the hammocks and pack everything else. It worked well, but I lost my pack cover a few days ago so during the last few steps things got a little wet.  The pack cover I had did not even keep the rain out so it would have been pretty useless anyway.

The light drizzle lasted most of the day.  We wore our rain jackets when it was level or downhill and took them off going uphill.  We got chilled sometimes and sweated in the jackets sometimes so in general it was not a pleasant day.

The terrain was not too bad.  We had to cross over a few ridges to get to cove mountain and passed through more fields to get there.  Once up on cove mountain it got pretty rocky so even though we were not changing altitude much, it was rough and slow going.  The view over the Susquehanna river from Hawk Rock was pretty clear despite the rain.  Visibility was probably about ten miles.

We made it into Duncannon, PA by 2 PM and went straight to the famous Doyle hotel.  It was once owned by Anheuser Busch and the current building is 110 years old.  We had heard the hamburgers were good but when we went to order apparently their Friday delivery had not come and they were out of nearly everything.  They did have Buffalo chicken salads and that suited us well as we were both craving greens.

We then did a quick resupply at the local convenience store and got a shuttle to a hotel just north of town.  We were advised by many southbounders to not stay at the Doyle.  Our first load of laundry in 10 days is done and every bodily orifice properly scrubbed.  It feels good to be clean.

Today was a bitterly cold morning wakeup but was quickly melted away with a hot breakfast and coffee in Boiling Springs.  We purposely got a late start so that the dew would have time to dry before walking through fields and farms of the Cumberland valley.

We were camped south of town and were greeted by three trains throughout the night.  The backpacker campsite is 50 yards from a very active track.

After hiking through town along the lake again we stopped at the local cafe and had pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast and way too much coffee.  We also dilly dallied a little bit because we were charging our phones.  We didn’t get a full charge but got us enough to make the next resupply in Duncannon tomorrow.

The hike out of town was very busy with Monday morning traffic but disappeared once we turned off the road into the woods.  The entire day was a mile of woods followed by a half mile of fields repeated all day long.  Not sure of the exact mileage but it was around 17 for the day.  The easy terrain is now behind us and we are only a few days away from where the serious rocks of PA begin.

We only had the last two miles not the in the valley to make it up to the first shelter from town.  We are camped out in our hammocks at the top of the hill and it is quite breezy.  There are two other flip floppers and about seven thru hikers up here tonight.  Most of the thru hikers are doing 25 mile days and today was no exception.  We are still nursing sore feet and are not quite up to full stamina yet so we stick to our 13-15 mile days.  But each day we improve.

The ghetto waist belt modifications on Karen’s pack seem to be helping her shoulders.  We will know better tomorrow since it will not be as flat as the terrain we saw today.

The weather was great.  We did not don the rain jackets except when we stopped a few times with a cool breeze blowing.  We were not hot and we were not cold.  It was overcast most of the day but we could feel the warmth of the sun.  Probably the best day we have had yet.  Tomorrow there is a slight chance of rain, but it is not supposed to be cold and hopefully it will come and go quickly if it t does rain.

Today was a long day.  We had a great campsite last night and got a late start at about 8 am.  The terrain started off pretty mellow but quickly got steep and rocky.  Our intent was to try to meet Don in Boiling Springs between two and three but the terrain slowed us down more than expected.

Even though I have hiked this section not too long ago and thought that I had remembered it pretty well, I don’t remember there being stiff climbs up to the rocky mountain tops.  Being a weekend, there were lots of day and weekend hikers out as well as two separate groups of kids bouldering on some of the bigger rock outcroppings.  They had brought giant pads with them and all of them fell repeatedly.  We sat and watched them for about fifteen minutes.  Both groups were doing negative climbs.  They were basically hanging upside down from the rocks.  I have no idea how they even got as far as they did.  We had a hard enough time just navigating the maze of the trail in-between the large rocks.

The weather was quite warm today and hardly a cloud in the sky but the breeze at the mountain tops was quite chilly and had us donning out rain jackets several times.  By about two in the afternoon it was finally warm enough to ditch the jackets for good.

We made it into Boiling Springs by 3:45 and Don was sitting on a bench by the lake waiting for us.  There were tons of people walking around town.  There either was some event going on or just mothers day celebrations.

Don took us to Walmart to resupply and get some foam and Gorilla tape to rig Karen’s pack to make the hip belt fit better.  Her waist is so narrow and the hip belt only goes so small because of the pockets on it, that it has been riding a little low on her and pulling down on her shoulders.  We put another layer of foam inside the belt to make it ride higher.  We have one more layer of foam and are keeping the Gorilla tape in case we need to add a second layer.  If this does not work, we will have to hit an outfitter to see about getting her another pack that fits her better.

Dinner tonight was at Chili’s and we had a good talk with Don.  He has started taking his boys hiking and backpacking to one of the shelters near here.  After dinner he dropped us off near the hikers campsite where we repacked and are ready for a day of hiking through farmland tomorrow.

After the crappiest day of the trip yesterday we probably had the best day of the trip today.  The cold rain of yesterday had us really bummed and if not for the nice big shelter our spirits today probably would have started of sour.  The morning was misty but not raining and pretty chilly.  We made good time to get ten miles to Pine Grove Furnace Stage Park for lunch at 1 PM.

This park is special to me because it is where my 2010 section ended and Karen’s cousin in PA picked me up.  It is also where I started in 2011 and my 1989 hiking partner, Donald, dropped me off and hiked with me for a day and a half.  It was weird because even though we had spoken a few times, we had not seen each other in over two decades yet it felt as if we were picking up a conversation from just a few weeks ago.  Since we are near where he lives outside of Harrisburg, we are planning to see him in Boiling Springs tomorrow.

Once we got to the state park, we dropped our packs and headed straight for the park grill.  It’s only open on weekends so we timed it perfectly.  Karen had a cheeseburger and I had a hiker burger which is a cheeseburger with a fried egg and bacon.  We shared a large order of fries and could not finish them all.

We were so stuffed that we did not even eat dinner tonight.  We just had two cookies and some cheese and cracker crumbs.

The park is also home to the official Appalachian Trail museum.  They have interesting artifacts from key figures from the trail.  One of the artifacts they have is a pair of Keds sneakers that Grandma Gatewood wore in the 1950’s.  They were huge!  They looked like a men’s size 12.

We are now camped beside a creek after about 17 miles today.  Tomorrow will be a shorter 11 miles to meet up with Don.  We have our hammocks set up facing each other again and we are in our cocoons texting and e-mailing home as a gentle rain is beginning to fall.

Cell service in a valley in southern PA in a dry hammock with a full belly.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

The weather forecast for the next two days is mostly sunny with very little chance of rain.  I am looking forward to tomorrow and seeing Don and Karen is looking forward to the day after where we walk 14 miles across the Cumberland valley through farmland.

Today was a very challenging day.  We knew it was supposed to rain all day but I don’t think we were mentally prepared for the cold.  It rained a few times in the evening but we were snug in our shelter with four other hikers and slept pretty well.  We set out early while it was not yet raining and three young hikers that starter in Georgia in March passed us like we were standing still.

We made the quarry gap shelters by 10 am just as the rain began.  These two shelters have a semi permanent caretaker that calls himself the innkeeper.

The innkeeper has flowers planted around the shelter and hanging baskets and really makes it seem not like an AT shelter at all.

We ate peanut butter and jelly and decided maybe we should cook a double batch of noodles since we would not want to stop in the rain.  That turned out to be a very wise decision.  It was another 7.5 miles to the next shelter and the rain was constant all day long.  We managed to keep our feet dry for about thirty minutes but that was all.  After they get pretty soaked you don’t really care where you step and be basically went straight through all the puddles just to keep going.  Luckily there is a cabin about five miles away where we could sit on the porch and have a quick snack before heading on.

We did finally make it to the birch run shelter at about 4:30 and we were both chilled to the bone.  I’m not sure what the temperature was but I am guessing about 50.  The shelter is quite new, quite large, and quite nice.  And it’s dry.  The picnic table is covered so as soon as we changed into dry clothes we immediately began cooking.  Mashed potatoes with tuna and chocolate pudding for dessert.  Another hiker gave us a cliff bar so that was second dessert.

We will likely have to have one big day either tomorrow or the day after in order to be able to hike across the Cumberland valley which is a 14 mile stretch with no water and no camping.  We also need to resupply in Boiling Springs.  We will see how the weather goes tomorrow and make our decisions then.  But for now it’s off to bed at 7:30, not quite yet hiker midnight.

We stopped a mere half of a mile from Pennsylvania yesterday to resupply in Cascade, MD.  We had a nice room in a private house with a fantastic breakfast that was within walking distance to a small town grocery.  We now have food for four more days of travel.  We also were able to walk one block for our first pizza of the trip and it was fantastic.  Yankee pizza does not disappoint.  We packed out three slices for lunch and it was just as good.

It was just a quick jaunt to the Mason Dixon line where we entered PA in overcast weather.  The weather never changed all day.  Late in the day around 4 PM we actually saw shadows on the ground for about fifteen seconds but that was it.

The terrain was good for much of the hike.  We keep building miles each day as we grow stronger and today was just over fifteen miles.  Karen is getting faster on the uphills but still hates them and is almost up to her normal speed on the flats.  Pretty soon we will be able to plan on fifteen to twenty miles as a typical days schedule.

Because of the weather we did not see or hear much wildlife today.  There were a few vistas but the weather was good enough only at one of them which was a pretty harrowing boulder scramble and Karen stayed at the base of that one but I went to see the view which was nice but completely forested.

We are staying in a shelter tonight because it is supposed to start raining about midnight and not stop until at least noon.

We had to break camp in the rain the other day and the tarps are still wet from that adventure and we don’t want to have to pack in the rain if we can avoid it.  Hiking in it is bad enough.  We are not sure where our destination is tomorrow so we will just play it by ear and see where we end up if the weather lets up.  The shelters have been very nice in southern PA so far so we are hopeful that we will find a nice place to stop.

Rain was forecast for the entire day but it was not only the morning that was dreary.  We hiked across a few fields in light mist but by the time we got towards our lunch spot it was overcast but dry and very cool.

There were several road crossings and several stream crossings and one stream was flowing so quickly we had to take our shoes off and don our crocs and ford across.  Talk about cold.  The water was so cold, the pain on the feet was intense.  It felt like they were being crushed in a vice.  It took about a minute to cross and we were glad to get our shoes and socks back on.  Afterwards we felt refreshed.

The climb up from there to our lunch spot was quite steep and at the brand new shelter we stopped at for lunch there as a crew of about a dozen hikers from a local club up there for their weekly hike.  We talked a bit before they left then we ate and left ourselves.  As we were leaving we met a young German girl and offered her an extra liter of water we had. The water source there was a very long climb half way down the ridge.

We made good time the rest of the day and are now at a boarding house so that we could resupply.  It was a nice little market and we now have apple pies and leftover pizza for lunch and dinner the next day.

We are only half a mile from the Mason Dixon line and will enter Pennsylvania in the morning.  Boogie hoo, Maryland is in the books.

We had a good day today.  We started out from the backpackers campsite just before 8 am in another misty day after a good hard rain last night.  It took quite a while to get the hammocks set up because one of the trees was way too big for the tree hugger straps so I had to join two of them together to make it around the tree and then we both were joined to the same suspension.  It worked, but if Karen shifted it would jiggle me and vice versa.  We both stayed warm and dry despite the rain but we had to pack them up soaking wet which is somewhat normal.

First stop of the day was the Washington monument in Maryland.  Not as big as the one in DC but it has a better view.  It was misty before we got there and we had great views of the countryside and just as we packed up to leave, the fog rolled in.  Perfect timing.

We went a few miles to the next shelter and had an early lunch of pasta salad and relaxed a bit before heading off to Annapolis rocks to watch the buzzards circle.  They allow camping there and have a caretaker to make sure it doesn’t get trashed like some of the impromptu cliff sites do.  It’s a neat site that is not scarred by graffiti.

We passed the campsite where most of the people we started with stopped to camp and pushed on a little further since it wasn’t even 3pm yet.  We passed a really nice spring and cameled up and headed out with four liters intending to either make it five more miles to the next shelter or stop to dry camp since the trail there was along a ridge line.  We ended going about 3.5 miles before finding a nice spot with lots of good trees and big rocks to sit on.  We were able to get the hammocks set up pretty quickly and get dinner cooked just before the rain let loose.  Now we have another two hours to hang out and chat before it gets dark.  We are set up about 15 feet from each other so we can see each other and chit chat.

We have seen a few hikers pass by headed toward the shelter and even though we are only about 1.5 miles away, we like our mountain top campsite and a little seclusion for a change.  People are nice but being alone is nice sometimes, too.  I think we did around 13 miles today which is good for this early in the trip.  Better to lay up and feel good tomorrow than have pushed on a little too early in the trip and faced an injury.

The forecast for the next three days is more rain all day and all night with only small glimpses of only 30% chance or less.  The rest of the time the chance is 70% chance or better.  We haven’t had to actually hike very much in actual ran yet (just mist), but it looks like our introduction to Pennsylvania will be a wet one indeed.