- 6/21: Miles 1057.2-1071.9 (14.5 mi.)
- Total ascent: 3045′; descent: 3018′
- 6/22: Miles 1071.7-1081.9 (10.2 mi.)
- Total ascent: 1811′; descent: 1555′
The low mileage of the last two days belies just how eventful they have been.
For one, we completed Maryland and are now in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has far fewer day hikers than the trail in Maryland, which must be near the D.C. suburbs. Dispersed camping is allowed in Pennsylvania but not in Maryland, again, probably because of its suburban surroundings.
Also notable about these days is back-to-back-trail magic. A woman named Patchouli threw, for her own birthday, a picnic for hikers passing through Pen-Mar Park (on, you might guess, the PA-MD border). We were fortunate today to be served the same hot dogs, Gatorade, and chips by a different trail angel, a man named Tycoon who was a retired hedge fund manager.
What came between the magic episodes, however, was wicked. We cut our day short to stay at Deer Lick, the first shelter after Pen-Mar, because of an unusually powerful storm (in truth, we went 100 feet further, and then instinctively turned around when the gusts began). We stayed in that shelter for 16 hours of solid rain. Trees around us cracked, crashed, and fell. An old man thru-hiking north stunningly (or stupidly) decided to tent out of pride that he hadn’t stayed in a shelter yet. A family of teens out for a section hike occupied the second shelter, the first such setup we saw but which is apparently common in Pennsylvania.
Company came to our shelter around 9 a.m. when a soaked group of four we hadn’t seen since Glasgow, and then two brothers flip-flopping north from Harper’s Ferry, clambered in. Being all but dry, neither Rachel or I had ventured out for the bear cans or even dressed. I felt indecent in my underwear until all four of them changed right in front of us, shivering in a cool morning more suited to spring or fall than summer (the prior day, 6/21, was Hike Naked Day, and we did see someone hiking in their birthday suit; perhaps I’m just a prude).
Today, since leaving the shelter, we made poor time. The blowdowns from the storm were severe: We walked around what we could, but we were forced in some places to climb-jump our way over a half-dozen snarled trees. At the state park where we got the second trail magic, we saw a pickup crushed and power crews working to clear logs off lines.
And, to top it all off, we’re sick. We think our dirt-trained immune systems struggled when exposed to a real city’s worth of people. We’ve both had both doses of a Covid vaccine, so our fingers are crossed it’s just a chest cold. We split an Orange Early Rise (TM) this evening for the Vitamin C.
Tomorrow, our town day is cancelled. We think we can make it on snacks, after a close check of the bear can, to a small country store famous for the “Half-Gallon Challenge” ice cream eating competition for our next resupply. After that, we should have trailside food options for a few days in a row, similar to the Shenandoahs.
I don’t enjoy getting sick on ice cream, especially while otherwise sick, so I don’t plan to compete. But I do reserve the right to change my mind.
