July 14 - July 17

Finished off Pennsylvania, and good riddance. Visiting with family and spending a whole week slackpacking was great, but walking on sharp rocks every day sucked. I turned an ankle multiple times each day, and the pointy rocks jabbed at the bottom of my feet. (Did you know that Northeastern PA was once known as "the slate belt?" I didn't but I'll never forget it.) Some highlights of the last few days:

--Finally saw my first rattlesnake. Disappointingly, he didn't rattle at me. He was sunning himself in the center of the trail, and I threw rocks at him to get him to move. I thought about using my poles to pick him up, all Steve Irwin-style, but then I remembered that Steve Irwin was killed by an animal.

--The Lehigh Gap was a pretty depressing place. Decades of zinc smelting in the town of Palmerton led to the mountains above the town being completely devoid of vegetation. Pollution killed everything, leaving a moonscape of barren rock. Years of cleanup has improved it, I'm told, but vegetation is still sparse and patchy, and even the good spots look more like Mexico than Pennsylvania. The 1000 foot climb out of the gap - on bare, shadeless rock on a 90 degree day - was as hard a climb as any on the trail so far.

--My last night in Pennsylvania, I had a view across the river into New Jersey. A rain shower ended my day earlier than I was planning, but then rewarded me with a rainbow pretty much directly over the Delaware River with Jersey as my pot of gold. I'll take it.


July 18

I wake up at 5 am, and I'm hiking by 6. Early stop the day before means I have to get going today as I have an appointment - a couple of old college friends are coming up to meet me on the trail. So I hurry out of camp, knock off a fairly easy 6 miles before 10 am, then finish a few town errands in Delaware Water Gap, PA, before walking another mile over to the Jersey side.

A dozen years out of college, my friend Rachel is one of the very few people I've kept up more than cursory contact with. I don't think I'd have expected that, but I'm very glad for it. She's one of the very few friends I've ever had willing to engage in the sort of rambling, contentious philosophical and theological conversations/arguments I enjoy. To my chagrin, I must confess that over time, I've moved in her direction more than she's moved in mine. I suppose I'm asking for it when I debate an Ivy League Seminary graduate. (And as she reads this, she's no doubt rolling her eyes and saying, "It's not a contest with winners and losers." She's right there, too, so score another for her.)

Anyway, I have a great afternoon picnicking and catching up with Rachel and Andrew, and meeting their two adorable daughters, Heather and Hannah. They graciously invite me to go down the shore with them for a day or so, and I am enormously tempted; but I've just barely begun to get my rhythm back after my Pennsylvania break, and more time off would just make it that much harder.

By early evening, they drop me off where we met, just on the Jersey side of the river. I walk about a mile before making camp.

From Harper's Ferry to the Delaware Water Gap, this hike's been about meeting up with family and friends; now it's back to the grind. I still have 900 miles to go, including the hardest sections of the entire trail, in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. At one time, I imangined that the trail got easier as you went along, but that isn't true. At best, you just become used to it being hard; at worst, it's like being in a sports playoff, where winning one match up only means you move on to play someone even tougher.

I am already more tired, in more ways, than I have ever been in my life. And now I have to walk the last 900 miles in 2/3 the time it took me to walk the first 900, and over tougher terrain, and likely in worse weather.


July 19 - 21

First three days in New Jersey are hot, humid and very rocky. Altogether unpleasant, really. The humidity just sucks the life right out of you; I've been trying to get up early in the mornings to avoid the worst of the heat, but the humidity is such that I'm still dripping sweat at 9 am. Adding to that has been loneliness - for three days, I've been almost always alone, occasionally meeting section-hikers and only seeing a couple thru-hikers. I can read the registers and see a whole bunch of people just a few days ahead, but in the heat and humidity, still getting back in shape after so much taking it easy in Pennsylvania, I have no chance of catching up.

There have been a few highlights. My first night camping in Jersey was at an absolutely beautiful, and sort of illegal spot right next to a creek. I woke up the next morning at about 6:30, rolled out of the hammock, and began to stretch out. I'd only gone a few paces when I found myself about fifteen feet away from an adult male bear. He was big - 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. We scared the snot out of each other - each of us running about 20 yards back before stopping to eye one another, and slowly regaining our nerve. He walked back down to the creek, finished his drink, then walked off, clearly not happy with my campsite.


July 22

The day started as another grim slog in miserable conditions - once more hitting 90+ degrees, once more smotheringly humid the same miserable conditions I've been in for what seems like forever. But around noon, things start to change.

First, I run in to Brahma Bull and Sweet Potato, a couple that I've met several times along the trail, starting waaaay back near Damascus. With them is The Thinker, who I've met as well as Cayenne and Tailgate, two women who have been ahead of me for months and who somehow I passed in the last few days. (These kind of encounters happen a lot; if you read the hiker registers in the shelters, hostels and so on, you see the same names again and again, until you finally meet them after weeks or months.) Soon, I'm walking in one of the biggest groups I've been in.

Second, we hit the ironically-famous "Secret Shelter." It has the name because it does not appear on any maps; it is not an officially-sanctioned AT shelter. Instead, it is on private property, owned by a farmer AT thru-hiker who makes it available to hikers. There's not much of a sign, but it's mentioned in the guidebooks long-distance hikers use, so you have to be in the know. You get there, and it's a cabin with electricity (and a fan) hot running water (and a shower). Definitely a great place to spend the night, if I'd gotten here later than 2:30. Even so, it was a nice place to take a break before heading on, and wonderful to see someone opening up their private property this way.

Which leads me to the Mayor of the village of Unionville, NY, population 500 and change (the trail here is still in NJ, but essentially runs parallel and just over the border for some thirty miles or so; Unionville is only .4 off the trail, but across the state line). What the Mayor does is another sort of mystery. As far back as Tennessee, I was told to get here and look up the Mayor. The last couple shelter registers have included notes from southbounders praising the Mayor, but not saying exactly what for. My guidebook only says that Unionville allows hikers to camp on the town park.

So the seven of us roll into Unionville not really knowing what to expect. We reach the general store, and shortly afterwards an SUV arrives. (I'm guessing someone had a number and called it, but I really don't know.) Is this the Mayor?
"No, I'm Butch. I got room for five, and I'll come back for the rest of youse. Put your packs in the back."

This is the sort of thing you really get used to on the trail. You have no real idea where you're going or what's going to happen; you just go with it.

As it happens, we're taken to the house of Dick Ludwick. Dick's been the village Mayor for the last 12 years (he says it's his last term), after careers in insurance and as a teacher. He's a widower, his wife having passed several years ago. One son lives upstate, the other in London. As Mayor, he's always been hiker-friendly, but in the last two years, he's taken things to a whole new level. He started offering showers and laundry; then it was letting people camp in his yard; this year he's turned his basement into a bunkhouse and is serving up dinner every night to however many hikers show up. So far the high night has been 26.

This is not a hostel; this is Dick's home. He's cooking you dinner in his kitchen, doing your laundry in his washer and dryer, inviting you to sit around his dining room table. When the bunkroom downstairs fills up, you can sleep on his living room floor.

Of course, this is New York, so the hospitality isn't sugar-coated; Dick, his housemate Bill, Ralph (a village employee; maybe THE village employee) and whatever other locals he's corralled into helping out will welcome you with sarcasm and put-downs. But it is unmistakably a welcome nonetheless. Dick makes a point to show an inspirational video to every single hiker that comes through (Google the name "Paul Potts") and offer up heartfelt encouragement. He's done this for several hundred hikers this year.

I wrote a long entry before I left where I explained Trail Magic. That's a shame as I now do not think I understood it at the time. The physical gifts that Trail Angels provide are terrific - the drinks, the rides, the hospitality - but for me at least, they pale next to the spiritual sustenance.

One of my two favorite moments from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings comes right at the very end. Sam Gamgee has journeyed a thousand miles, crossed mountains and rivers and endured epic hardships. In the last chapter of the book, he must say goodbye to Frodo. But the last paragraph of the last chapter finds him alone, at the end of all his adventures, walking to his house his wife and daughter await. The sentence reads something to the effect of "...and there was a fire, and light in the windows, and he was expected." That sentence, the last four words especially, has always crushed me. It is one thing to be welcomed upon one's arrival; it's something else to know you were expected, your arrival prepared for.

I have not slain any dragons on this trip, and yet again and again I have found myself expected, not by anyone with any obligation to me, but by complete strangers. When I look back on this trip, I will remember the mountaintops and the rivers and the bears. But more than any of that, I will remember the human experiences. Foremost among those will be what's happened so much now, in ten states, that it becomes a commonplace: You arrive at a place you've never been, tired, hungry and filthy, only to find that you have been expected, and a place saved for you in the Mayor's house.

I take a zero day in Unionville, on the 23rd, partly just to enjoy the crowd here, partly to catch up on journaling, partly because a forecast of heavy rains, that naturally, end up not arriving until late in the day. Rains continue into the morning of the 24th, and I hike out into the wet.

July 10-14

Well, after a full nine days staying at my brother's, I'm finally heading out. I've hiked about 85 miles this week, which is probably about the same as I would have done had I been carrying the pack. But it was a wonderful break to spend every night sleeping in air-conditioning, eating real meals (we went out for sushi last night!), showering, etc. Most importantly, I got a lot of chores done getting set up for the second half of the hike.

The hiking up here has been fairly level, but very, very rocky. I'll be glad to reach New Jersey.

People keep asking about my foot; I forgot to mention it, but it's pretty much totally healed, and has been for a couple of weeks now. I didn't post any photos of it when it happened, because I didn't want to freak my mom out. But since it's healed now, I'll post a photo of what it did look like after about 6 days. (warning, gross picture)

http://www.trailjournals.com/photos.cfm?id=361041

New Photos

New photo dump:

http://www.trailjournals.com/photos.cfm?id=358264

June 30 - July 9

Sorry I've been slow getting this updated; hopefully I will have a bunch of stuff to put up here soon.

-- The Angels dropped me off at Harper's Ferry on the 30th. Wish I could have taken more time to walk around town and see all the historical stuff; the trail runs right through the town, past ruins, etc, but I couldn't stay too long; just waited for the outfitter to open up to buy stove fuel and by 11 am I crossed the bridge (an old RR bridge) into Maryland; 5 states down, 9 more to go.

-- The trail in Maryland and the first part of Pennsylvania was really, really nice and very easy. The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club really does a fantastic job maintaining the trail, and keeping the shelters really nice. Maryland even has a free little campground, just for hikers, that features hot showers; wish they had more than 40 miles of trail.

-- Crossed the Mason-Dixon line, but I really knew I was out of the south when I crossed US Route 30; take a right hand turn, and that would take me all the way to my hometown on the Jersey Shore.

-- Finally did my first 20 mile day, on July 3rd. Yay me.

-- On July 4th, I reached Pine Grove Furnace state park in Pennsylvania. This is significant, because it's the half-way point of the trail (actually, with various relocations over the years, the mathematical halfway point is now something like 3 miles before the park; since trail work and minor relocations happen all the time, nobody ever knows exactly where). I marked the event with, as is AT tradition, a half-gallon of ice cream. 3000 calories of peanut butter ripple in just under an hour wasn't that hard, but I won't be doing it again anytime soon.

-- My parents, brother and sister-in-law all met me at Pine Grove Furnace on the 4th and took me up to the brother's house in Hershey. Took a couple of days off, and then started using that as a base of operations to do dayhikes all this week, what my mother calls "commuting" to the trail. Get dropped off in the morning, hike all day carrying just a daypack, get picked up in the evening to go home to a shower and dinner. Sweet. I'd hoped I could do big miles this way, but it isn't working out so much; I am enjoying the rest and relaxation, as well as doing a lot of chores to set up the second half of the hike. (I also feel kind of bad about the fact that my sister-in-law has loaned me her lavender-and-pink Disney Princess bookbag to use on these dayhikes, and by the end of the week I'm going to return it reeking of sweat.)

I'll be here a couple more days and then put on the big pack this weekend, heading for New Jersey.

-- The terrain this week has been really odd. There was a beautiful flat walk across the rolling farmland of the Cumberland Valley, but there has also been plenty of indications of why they call this "Rocksylvania" or "The place where boots go to die." Lots of rocky ridge walking with anklebreakers galore, and they say it gets worse as you head farther east...

June 20, 2008

Cool day. Still in kind of a bad mood all morning as I did the 7 miles to reach US 33 and hitch a ride into Elkton. I'm in there by 1, and decide to eat at Dairy Queen. I order the large milkshake, and they bring me a bucket of dairy product of a size and viscosity well-suited to firefighting. Unwisely I drink the whole thing, and I'm queasy all afternoon.

I get to the Post Office and my repaired hammock is there, thankfully, so I pick that up, mail back the loaner I've been using, send off journals and postcards, and head back to the highway to wait for a hitch back ... and wait, and wait. 45 minutes go by before a white Sedan finally pulls over. I run up, open the door and hear "Chainsaw!"

I've not mentioned Raffle Queen before, which is an oversight. I first met her some 600 miles ago, way back at Overmountain Shelter on the TN/NC border. She was out doing a section hike then and we chatted over trail magic. What I didn't know then was that she was a trail angel herself (trail angels being the people who provide the trail magic; the exact theology of it is a big confusing).

I ran into her again at Daleville a few weeks ago when she was riding around with Lipstick, my other recurring Trail Angel. She actually participated in returning to me a shirt that I had left in Catawba three days earlier - someone recognized it as mine, and it changed hands a couple times before finding its way to me 50 miles up the trail.

And now I run into her again, as she is on her way up the road to the trail to provide trail magic. She's got a WWJD bracelet and a case of free beer, which makes her pretty much my kind of gal; too bad she's married ... (RQ: How old is your daughter? Can you set me up?)


June 21 - 30, 2008

Okay, so things here are going to change. Without my really planning on it, this journal has become pretty much exactly what I wanted to avoid - a daily weather report & mileage log. Frankly, writing that stuff has become boring for me, which means it has to be deadly tedious to you. So instead of trying to write daily entries, I'm just going to write every few days about what's happened lately. So, for instance, in the last few days, I have:

-Finished the Shenandoahs. A lot of people hated them, because the views are surprisingly, not all that good. My solution - spend part of every day walking the Skyline Drive, which runs parallel to the AT for 100 miles...

- Saw my first three full-sized bears of the entire trip on three different occasions over 5 days. Two ran away as soon as they saw me, but another was directly on the trail, and he just sort of kept meandering ahead of me for 15 minutes. I don't think he grasped that he was in my way. I'd close to about 30 yards, and he'd move up the trail, stop for a spell, then look surprised when I followed him.

- Hitched a ride into Front Royal with a guy named Larry who was going into town to buy a new car. We stopped at 7-11, and he bought me coffee and a donut. In the afternoon, after I resupplied on food, ate lunch, did laundry and checked my email, I hitched a ride back out of town - and got picked up by Larry, in his new car.

- With summer arriving, there are a lot more people out here doing section hikes, and thru-hikers continue to drop out. One night, I camped with four other hikers - I was the only one doing a thru.

- There is an infamous section north of the Shenandoah called "The Roller Coaster." It's a 13.5 mile stretch with 10 ups and downs. None of them are more than 500 feet or so, so I thought must be overrated. I was wrong - very rocky and with summer heat and humidity, it was as tough as anything I've done anywhere on the trail.

- After spending parts of 2 days in the Roller Coaster, and some poor water management leading to semi-dehydration, my last day heading into Harper's Ferry was brutal. When I reached the Shenandoah River, I took a soak for the better part of an hour. I checked into ATC headquarters as thru-hiker #488 for the year. That's about average for this time of year, they tell me.

- For the first time since visiting my parents two months ago, I spend a night in a house. I'm met in Harper's Ferry by the Angel family, old family friends from back when I was a kid. They've been following the hike closely, and graciously offer to drive out to HF, pick me up and host me for a much-needed zero day, my first in almost 2 weeks. After a Saturday dinner where I drink ridiculous amounts of iced tea, I spend a Sunday stuffing myself, resupplying and napping. Monday it's back to the trail.