Date: 2004-06-29
From: The Doyle Hotel

To: Raush Gap Shelter
Miles today: 28.9
Weather: scattered clouds

In the morning we ate breakfast of snacks and such in the room, left the key and headed out at about 8:30am past the Post Office, the ice cream place and across the bridge over the Susquehanna River on Route 322. On the other side of the river we crossed the railroad tracks and began a steep climb up to a ridge. The noise of our industrial society was unbelievable. Finally, as we crested the ridge, there was silence once again. The change was stunning. We were both pretty disappointed in The Doyle and glad to be out of earshot of the din of Duncannon.It was about 10 miles into the day at around 11:30am when we came upon a wondrous sight. It was a large cooler on the side of the trail, full of cans of soda. Thru-hikers had scribbled their appreciation all over the outside of the cooler. A can of Mug Root beer made the day. A few minutes later we were crossing a foot bridge over PA Route 255 in a pass. The trail was pleasant here and it was a happy time some how.About an hour later we came upon some kids from a summer camp at Table Rock. They were on a rock climbing expedition. They asked us a bunch of questions and when they realized we were on a 2000 mile hike they did the expected. That's right. They offered us food, oranges, rice crispy squares, granola bars and gratefully, we accepted. Another happy yogi.It wasn't long before we came to Peters Mountain Shelter. It was a nice new shelter with post and beam construction, lofts and decks. A couple of women were leaving as we arrived. We had some lunch. Buick was expanding his pallet with a tortilla slathered in Nutella and decorated with orange slices. Bizarre but good no doubt.Just a stones throw away was the little old log shelter that this nice new one was replacing. It was quaint but what a contrast.Strangely enough we must have hiked together most all day. It was around 5pm when we encountered a deer. We even got some photos. Nice. Ok, so the deer is a bit obscure in the photos.An hour or so later we came across a mailbox with a register in a clearing. The only thing we could think is that this was the site of the now missing Yellow Springs Village, an old mining village.Raush Gap Shelter was 0.3 miles down an old road of some sort but at least the spring was right in front. This was especially nice since it was nearly 8pm as we arrived. There were 2 or 3 thru-hikers there already but plenty of room. They had already eaten and were pretty well settled in for the night. The spring was actually built into a stone retaining wall with a stainless steel trough. There was also a stainless steel round counter wrapped around a tree. Very strange but handy indeed.The Smoker, part 1:As we were dealing with our dinners, the first episode of a strange set of encounters took place. A thru-hiker who was tenting nearby showed up to get some water. He was about to light a cigarette so I said to him something like: ¢Please, don't smoke near the shelter.¢ in a friendly tone, of course. I had asked a number folks not to smoke around me over the last 2 months and it had never been a problem. This time was different. This guy, adopted an attitude and explained as how it was outdoors and he could smoke anywhere he liked. He was pretty upset. He seemed to think his civil rights had been violated. I brought up the principle of Brownian motion. It seemed to be lost on him. He stormed off puffing away with a ¢holier than thou¢ attitude. I was astonished and so was Buick. We finished up, crawled quietly into our bags and slept. It had been a 28.9 mile day it was time to sleep but this little encounter bugged me.