Back in New England

On the 20th I slack packed 17.8 miles and stayed in Delaware Water Gap again. On the 21st I did 17.7 miles and stealth camped a mile after Sunrise Mountain. On the 22nd I did 28.3 miles and stealth camped half a mile after NJ 94. On the 23rd I did 23.7 miles and stealth camped along Little Dam Lake. On the 24th I did 29.5 miles and stealth camped a mile after US 9. On the 25th I did 18.3 miles and stayed at RPH shelter. On the 26th I did 16.8 miles and stayed at Telephone Pioneers shelter. On the 27th I did 21.2 miles and stayed at Mt Algo shelter. On the 28th I did 19.7 miles and stayed at the Sharon Mountain campsite.

So it's been a while since my last post. 200 miles in fact. I'll try my best to get through it. Hopefully I can make myself write a post more often. It takes a lot less time when it hasn't been so long.

This section started with the Post Office sending my food drop to the wrong zip code for general delivery. This delayed the box and held me in Delaware Water Gap longer then I had planned. The people I was hiking with didn't even spend one night in town and I ended up spending two. Luckily, instead of taking a zero on the 21st I paid someone to slack pack me. Slack packing is when you get driven up the trail and you hike back to wherever your stuff is. This allows you to basically carry nothing makes the miles easier. I had never bothered before now but it was my only real way to get some

miles in so I figured why not. It was a beautiful day, it's amazing how pretty New Jersey is.

The following day was the summer solstice, or more importantly hike naked day! While many people only do it for a short period of the day, if they do it at all, I did 15 miles with a bandana as my only concealment. The day was full of fantastic interactions with day hikers since it was a Saturday. Two of my favorites include the older couple walking their dog. We held a five minute conversation without me or them mentioning my attire, or lack of, and then we wished each other a good day and moved on. The other favorite was some who at least claimed to be a reporter and decided she wanted to interview me. I agreed and she whipped out her iPhone for a quick video interview. That will probably live on the internet somewhere. It was a great day complete with a fantastic sunset.

After that I did some big miles and caught back up with people. It wasn't actually as hard as I had thought it would be. The only major incident of those days was my lunchtime bear encounter. I had already seen multiple bears in Jersey but this one surprised me. I was sitting on a stone wall along the trail at a road crossing eating lunch and I heard something behind me. I turn around and a rather large bear sedately walks through the stone wall, looks me up and down, then continues on. I wasn't fast enough with my camera to get the look but I got the bear. Besides that the only interesting thing is state lines. 

All in all this section of trail is just beautiful. The woods of southern New York and New Jersey are just amazing. Even having done them before I was still surprised by how nice they are. If you are ever looking for a relatively easy section of the AT to do but you want it to be beautiful definitely look at this section as an option.

Well I have 9 states down and I'm back in New England. Hopefully it won't be over a week until my next post but who knows.

PA is Done! Again.

On the 11th I did 11.3 miles and stayed at the Doyle. On the 12th I did 11 miles and stayed at Peters Mountain shelter. On the 13th I did 22.8 miles and camped next to PA 72. On the 14th I did 18.4 miles and camped at Hertline Campsite. On the 15th I did 18.6 miles and camped at a free pavilion in Port Clinton. On the 16th I did 22.2 and stayed at the Allentown Hiking Club shelter. On the 17th I did 18 miles and stayed at the Jailhouse hostel in Palmerton. On the 18th I did 21.6 miles and camped just past PA 33. On the 19th I did 14.6 miles and stayed at the Church of the Mountain hostel in Delaware Water Gap.

I realize it's been a little while since my last update. This photo completely explains why I am not a big fan of the AT in Pennsylvania.

So the no shower and no laundry challenge was immediately ended the night of my last post because Doctor Zoom did a 43 mile day and got into camp at 4am to catch us. After that he wanted a few easy days so we did 11 miles into town and then 11 out of town too. This allowed his body to heal up a bit after the abuse he did to it and it also allowed us to stay at the Doyle.

The Doyle is an old hotel that has been in continuos operation for over 100 years. It is outrageously run down and in terrible shape but it has been sheltering hikers for decades and the owners are absolutely fantastic people. I have a photo of the building and then a decent shot of the owner.

After that enjoyable experience it was mostly just a hike through rocky woodland for days with stops in town every other day or so. It started with a couple solid days of rain and fog which made everything damp even if you weren't in the rain. One night I left my kilt hanging up in a shelter to hopefully dry it out a little and the next morning it was wetter. Good old mid Atlantic humidity. Here was the view for about three days.

Since then the weather as been much nicer but the trail has gotten much worse. The closer to New Jersey the trail gets in PA the worse the rocks get. Here are just some examples of how terrible it is.

These rocks just destroy your feet. After a few hours of hiking your feet just throb. At the end of the day I can just feel my feet pulsing when I am sitting in camp. It is quite the experience. I had basically no desire to hike PA a second time and I REALLY don't have a desire to do it a third time. I don't see myself doing another AT hike of massive miles again but I didn't really see myself doing a second either. Hopefully if I do anything like this again I make myself skip this state. The rocks also make nice spots for rattlesnakes. 

After the torture of walking the state you get to go to Delaware Water Gap. The church hostel here is amazing. It is completely donation based and every Thursday has a free hiker feed. Luckily I was here on that day and got a fantastic free meal out of it. Also Rosie decided she needed to photo bomb one of the photos but I'm still going to use it. It's an example of what the trail does to people minds after a while.

Well, it's on to NJ. The next few states should fly by and in no time I'll be in New England once again. Hopefully it is a little less humid there but I'm not counting on it.

Into PA

On the 6th I did 20.8 miles and camped at Pine Knob shelter. On the 7th I did 22.7 miles and stayed in Deer Lick shelter. On the 8th I did 23.2 miles and stayed at Birch Run shelter. On the 9th I did 21 miles and stayed at a campsite a half mile after Sheet Iron Roof Rd. On the 10th I did 22.4 miles and stayed at Darlington shelter.

The first bit of this section was just me redoing a few miles to get back to where I got off the trail. It was pretty boring doing the same miles I had done just about a week earlier. Luckily I finished those miles pretty quickly and I've been back on "new" trail for a few days.

The first new thing to happen was I hit some halfway points. First the official one for 2014 at mile 1092.65. It is nothing special, just a laminated print out but it's at the correct mileage.

A few miles later a more robust sign was passed. It's always bit odd that the trail changes so much from year to year.

Later that same day I hit the half gallon challenge. This is where you attempt to eat a half gallon of ice cream at the little store just past the halfway point. It was pretty darn easy. 25 minutes and it was gone and I could eat a bit more if I had wanted too. Most of the people I was with then succeeded too. From the photo can you guess who didn't make it?

This last day I hiked through Cumberland Valley. It is an outrageously flat and boring 20 miles of trail. It was hot, humid and there was not exactly a lot of shade. The following pictures pretty much wrap up the valley.

Now it's on to the more rocky and more terrible section of PA. To really give me incentive I doing the PA shower/laundry challenge. It is something we made up today but I'm going from Harpers Ferry (mile 1019) to Deleware Water Gap (mile 1288) without a shower or laundry. This unfortunately means I also can't stay in town anytime between there because I'm not so mean to stay in a hostel and not shower. We will see how it goes, you have to do something to mix it up.

The Outer Banks

On the 28th I did 19.8 miles and stayed near Rocky Mountain shelters. On the 29th I did 3 miles and camped near US 30. On the 30th I got a ride back to meet people at Harpers Ferry. On the 31st all six of us drove down to Southern Shore on the Outer Banks. On the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th we stayed at Doctor Zoom's parents house in the Outer Banks. On the 5th I made it back to Harpers Ferry and hiked 2 miles out of town and camped along the C&O bike path.

Since I had been starting these with mountaintop selfies this seems appropriate.

So the journey to the Outer Banks started in fantastic hiker style. I got to the road crossing where I was getting picked up a day early. This meant I just kinda sat next to a busy road and waited. Eventually a car pulled up and an older couple got out and said, "We are here looking for a ninja." "That's me!" is the only way I could respond.

This was made even better when they extended their hands and said, "We are Sarah's parents." I don't know who Sarah is. Not only that I haven't even met her by her trail name. This makes it a tad awkward when I shake their hands and say, "I have no idea who that is." They gave me an odd look and I hopped in their car. In normal life this interaction would be exceptionally odd. The AT makes everything okay. They nicely gave me the full hour and a half ride south to Harpers Ferry.

From there me and Doctor Zoom went and stayed at a friends of his who is near Dulles airport. The next day we rented a car, drove back to Harpers Ferry and picked up Impact, Apple, Trip and Rosie. We then turned around and drove to the Outer Banks. Once there we immediately jumped in the hot tub. It seemed like a reasonable first activity.

The following few days involved a lot of naps, eating and time on the sand. Unfortunately for most of the time down there the rip currents were so bad there was no swimming allowed but we made do. Below is the six of us, from left to right, Trip, me, Apple, Doctor Zoom, Rosie and Impact. It was a relatively diverse crew of different ages, backgrounds and geographic homes but on the AT basically everyone fits in.

On our last night down there Mama Zoom was incredibly nice and took us all out to eat. We made sure to get both her and Father Zoom in on the group shot at the end of the trip. In this one we are all wearing Doctor Zoom's cloths but I still went with the kilt.

Leaving there had to swing by Tyson's Corner so I could buy new shoes. Then drop Apple off at Union Station right in DC. Then the rest of us drove back to Harpers Ferry. Somehow I was the one driving the whole way back. It struck me as strange that the guy from Maine with not a ton of city driving experience was the one navigating northern VA and into DC at 5pm on a weekday but it went incredibly smoothly. I got back on trail at 9pm at Harpers Ferry.

I realize that I had already hiked out of Harpers Ferry. I decided I didn't want to make anyone drive me back to where I got off so I'll just re-hike those 60 or so miles. What's a few more days in the woods. I won't be skipping anything and I'm just going to hike right on through. I am no longer going into DC for a break there, sometimes life doesn't work out quite as you would like. Luckily the trees and mountains of the trail are here to remind me that everything is awesome. (Lego Movie reference, if you haven't seen it you should)