Month: May 2021

Start: Kind of Outdoorsy (AT mi 1149.2). Stop: Peter’s Mountain Shelter (AT mi 1160.6). Today’s miles: 11.4 miles. Total AT mileage: 135.6 miles

I got up around 6:30, tried my best to tip toe around the room of sleeping hikers, and quickly got ready for the day. By 6:45 I was at the little restaurant across the street waiting for them to open. Uphill, one of the hostel hikers last night came over and was waiting with me for a few minutes before the gentleman opened the door and let us come in. We decided to eat together since we were the only ones there, besides two other local men. It was kind of cute, one of the “regulars” brought us our menu and brought Uphill his coffee, saying, “I like to be helpful when I can.”

Uphill is section hiking Maryland and Pennsylvania. He’s from Roswell, GA.. not far from my hometown at all! It was neat to chat him up this morning. The guy working the restaurant was also pretty cute. He says the owner is his best friend, so he came out of retirement to help her out when she can’t be there. He only charged me $2.65 for my egg and cheese sandwich. After we ordered, Cholula and Curmudgeon came in and ordered their breakfast, too.

I was the first one out the door and on the road to start the day.. simply because I knew they’d all catch me on the uphills. The bad part about being the first out, I walked into like 58472528393635383937253 spider webs crossing a bridge. I’ve never been happier to have my rain jacket on (it literally caught the majority of the webs). I started off swatting each one off of me-and then that turned in to just going for it and wiping them off at the end of the bridge.

After the 2 ish mile road walk, the trail went over some railroad tracks and then straight up into the woods. Up, up and up I went, then rocky scrambles for a while before walking along a ridge. The whole way up I was praying to see some pretty views of the town and water below-but it was all obstructed by the trees.

There were a few nice view points though, and I took my time and explored every single one of them! The last one, I sat at with Curmudgeon, Cholula, Towely, and Uphill and ate my Combos from town and finished off a Gatorade a trail angel gave us on the way up 🙂

We hiked the last little bit to the shelter. It’s a huge nice one, and I’m going to sleep upstairs in the shelter tonight. The privy is “full” so that’s a no go (not that I’d be successful there anyway, I’ve already dug a hole once today).. and the water source is straight down 300 rock “steps” and roughly 0.2 miles, but it felt farther. Going down isn’t bad, coming back with 8 pounds of water.. holy hell. My heart rate got up to 178 bpm on the way up! Hahaha

Lizard made it to the shelter before the water venture and she filled up to. I swear out of the 7 people I saw come up from the water (myself included) she was the only one that didn’t look completely wiped. Bad. Ass. She stretched a bit and headed on down trail, looks like someone has her trail legs!

We also met Quicksand and Hawk.. both of which are pretty AT famous. Quicksand is on his 4th AT thruhike and Hawk on his 6th. They were pretty awesome and very humble for all the popularity they’ve achieved on trail/YouTube.

Curmy, Cholula, Towely and I all ate dinner together. Mine was just a Knorrs pasta side with Buffalo chicken (from one of those pouches like tuna fish) mixed in. I won’t lie-it was weird, but so good. Cholula dehydrated her own meals from home over last year and had them sent in their resupply boxes. Tonight they had an italian Mac and cheese with veggies in it. I got to take a bite-it totally put my weird concoction to shame.

The 4 of us are staying in the shelter tonight, several other folks are tenting nearby. It’s not even 7pm yet and I’m slap worn out. Maybe my trail legs will show up tomorrow! hahaha

Start: Kind of Outdoorsy Hostel. Stop: Kind of Outdoorsy Hostel. Today’s miles: 0. Total AT mileage: 124.2 miles

I woke up to the sound of hikers getting up and getting packed. I moseyed out of bed and it was so nice to not have anything to “have” to do. Although, technically, that’s every day, but knowing today was a zero day just felt that much more exciting.

I spent the morning hanging out with a few folks not rushing out, and some hikers that had hiked in this morning and was planning to just shower, resupply, and head back out. A lot of the NOBOs are coming through, and man they pull some big miles. I’ll be crushing big miles soon I hope.
Lizard and I walked to the quick mart and got our next week’s worth of food. Curmy and Cholula came over and we did a little pack shakedown and I managed to get rid of close to 3 pounds of stuff!

We all walked to the post office together and then to get ice cream. SO. GOOD. We hung out and chit chatted, walked by the lake, and then all went back to our “homes” to relax, nap, stretch, etc.. I ended up finishing an audiobook.

Today was so very necessary. My feet feel relaxed and less swollen, my knee hasn’t bothered me a bit. I laid out on the picnic table out back and stretched out while getting sucked into my book.. and it finished just in time to go to dinner 🙂

We ate at the little pub, drank a few beers and had some great conversation. I had a fantastic time. We came back to the hostel and some new people are all here that I haven’t met. It looks like every day will have new folks to meet. Some will feel like family, some you’ll be thankful they hike so much faster than you. Hahaha

Start: Darlington Shelter (AT mi 1138.3) Stop: Kind of Outdoorsy Hostel (AT mi 1149.2) Today’s miles: 10.9 miles. Total AT mileage: 124.2 miles

I woke up to a little bit of brightness plus the sound of a one man bro sesh happening not too far away, aka: some manly talking; but never hearing anyone respond to the voice that loudly talking. I looked at my watch: 5:45 am. Hell no. So i closed my eyes and rolled over. The next time I awoke it was 6:47am and more than one man was loudly talking. Ok, fine. I’ll get up I guess.

I was slowly moving out of my sleeping bag when Cholula and Curmy came up, all packed and ready to go. We made plans to meet in Duncannon, they headed out and I started slowly packing, while occasionally glancing over at lizard’s hammock-not a sound.

I ate breakfast, listening to bro sesh 101 discussing women and enemy “beat downs” and when I was ready to head out it was almost 8. Lizard’s hammock was still silent, so I wrote her a note in the shelter log book so she’d know my plan to get to town and either reserve us a room at the “motel” or get us hostel bunks. (Also, while in the privy, I saw a mouse!! The one thing I was dreaming about last night— that I put on chapstick and mice we’re gnawing at my lips because I slept in the exposed shelter.. not my favorite thing).

I took off, feet high on the Vitamin I.. and thought I’d make incredible mileage times like yesterday. Ha! The rocks had another plan! Every single time a sweet little breakaway came, less than 0.10/mile later = rock scramble. I felt like I was inching along all stinking day.

It was beautiful, and while completely overcast, I still enjoyed it. It was refreshing to not have the sun bearing down when things got difficult and slow going. There were tons of rocks, lots of day hikers and trail runners, and a few great overlooks. While I felt slow and like at this pace I’ll never finish this trail, I still came into town before 2pm, for an 11 mile day. It may not be fast, but it definitely wasn’t bad.

I got to town and walked straight to the Doyle Hotel, known to be “hiker friendly” and far from classy. The doors were locked and the signs were off. I couldn’t figure out where to go, and Lizard had Curmy and Cholula’s number,So i went down the block a little and got a bunk at the hostel. She told me she only had 2 bunks left, so I got mine and asked if I could go ahead and reserve Lizard’s too. She let me, and so I text her to let her know, but also that it wasn’t a paid reservation so if she had plans to meet her other friends here, she could without feeling obligated to stay here.

I showered, bagged up my dirty laundry, made my bunk and relaxed a bit. I met some of the other hikers here that zeroed today that are going back out tomorrow, most of the folks lizard hiked with before I started. Heater is also here, because she hurt her foot and is letting it heal up some before meeting her friends pizza and day hiker up ahead a bit. She’ll come back and finish a 44 mile section later once she makes it to Katahdin with her tramily.

Lizard got here, showered and then we went and did laundry together with Curmy and Cholula at the laundromat. Curmy brought a case of beer.. laundry is so much better with beer and good company.

After laundry, we drank a few more beers outside their hotel (they got a room at that Doyle hotel by going upstairs and knocking on the private door of the owners lol, I wasn’t that ballsy), Patron came out and joined us, and then we all went for pizza at the only restaurant open in town. It was actually pretty damn good. Although, the beer probably helped that a little bit.

When we finished eating, we went back to their hotel, sat out in the big second floor landing together and all just hung out at talked and drank a few more beers. Honestly, meeting these people has been as awesome as doing the trail itself. The people make the trail.. the trail. They’re like my tramily now.. I hope it’s mutual. I’m quite fond of each of them.

Lizard and I tiptoed back into our hostel, with lights out and glaring eyes annoyed at the disturbance. I’m on a middle bunk of 3 high, with my little curtains pulled. It’s comfy and I’m content. We aren’t hiking out tomorrow, it’ll be my official first zero day!

Plans will include going to the post office to send some stuff home, going by the grocery store to resupply food (after making a semi plan of how many days of food I actually need), and resting these sore feet. Our friends will all nhike out in the morning, and I’m ok with that. I just hope we all get to catch back up soon 🙂