Date: 2004-07-17
From: Rausch Gap Shelter

To: 501 Shelter
Miles today: 17.4
Weather: overcast clouds

There's a sort of "tortoise and hare" phenomenon going on. I've encountered Skywalker and Chuggs many times over hundreds of miles. They pride themselves on hiking twenty plus mile days, pushing their twenty-something bodies as far as they can. But, as a result, they end up taking off multiple days to deal with wounded feet or whatever. Meanwhile I just keep plugging away steadily.Compared to others, I'm one of the slower hikers, especially over rocky terrain. I get up and going early so I can get to the shelter by supper. But I do get there. The result is that I end up keeping pace with the "hares".Today's hike was more ridge walking. The trail left one ridge, went down to the valley, up and over Second Mountain, then back up to the next ridgeline, Blue Mountain. I forded a small creek wearing my sandels since the stepping stones were submerged, an indication that we really have had a bit of rain lately. It was the second time since I started that I'd had to ford a stream.The trail crosses a large construction site at Route 81, where they're building a new, huge overpass-bridge. They had large orange signs that read "Appalachian Tour Detour", but it was still confusing and some people got lost briefly. There was once again that jarring clash between walking in the wooods and coming upon "civilization", this time trucks, a huge crane, large concrete structures reaching to the sky. The trail followed a detour road partway up the hill, then thankfully back to the good old white blazes.As the trail continued up to the top of Blue Mountain, it became increasingly rocky, slowing my progress. The first mile or two was slow going with the rocks. Dense brush on both sides of the trail reduced the visibility of the trail and made it nearly impossible to use treking poles. Much of the plant growth was poison ivy so I was constantly watching my footing on the rocks and trying to avoid the poison ivy. But there were also a few large patches of incredibly ripe and sweet raspberries that were well worth another delay. It seems these ridgelines are the rockiest at the beginning and the end, with some rocky hills in the middle, but often some un-rocky straight stretches. And so it was today, with stretches of fairly smooth trail and one large field of boulders to be crossed. I took a break after that to eat a snack when I heard "Rainbow"! Fancy Free had missed the trail at the end of the boulder field but could see my orange shirt through the trees. We continued on together, arriving for another break at the William Penn Shelter about 3:30. That shelter marks an important milestone -- its now less than a thousand miles to Katahdin! It's all downhill from here! Sweetleaf joined us and the three of us continued on. The last mile or so became rocky again. I was tired and grumpy, complaining that I didn't want to deal with the rocks at the end of a seventeen mile day. There were several views looking eastward onto farmland, then the trail turned up to cross Route 501 and then arrived at the shelter, a former potter's studio that's fully enclosed and has six bunks, a large table with old dining room chairs, and a large octogonal skylight. There's an outdoor "solar" shower as well. Hiker heaven! T-Bott joined us shortly after we arrived. We used Sweetleaf's cell phone to order pizza. Yea! It's been a challenging hike the last two days. I feel tired, but a good tired, not the exhaustion I've felt at other times.