Date: 2003-07-22
From: Duncannon, PA

To: Peters Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 11.3
Weather: broken clouds

Well...I made it out of town! It's always amazing what a joy it is when I've done that. We were on the other side of the river, and I just felt this overwhelming sense of relief. And at that point, we were still walking on concrete, but we had put over a mile between us and The Doyle Hotel. We didn't leave till just after 3:00, so we needed to do some fast stepping to get in the 11 miles we planned on. VSA and Dude decided to slack back into town and do a 20 mile day tomorrow. Several others, Bodhi, Dirty Little Barn Monkey, Starburst, Seamus and Winnebago, had gone at 1:00 to do a 17 mile slack back into town. Bodhi tried to get me to join them, but I knew I needed to get away from town permanently, not just for the day. Snot Rocket and Iceberg Slim also planned on leaving, but just getting to the first shelter. Rif Raf planned on taking a zero today. We had had a great morning...slept in till almost 8:00 (and I actually slept pretty well...yay!), had a huge breakfast downstairs, got laundry done, went to the post office and the store. Our trip to the store was the best! We were sitting in the restaurant talking about going, but noting that it was not recommended to walk there...too dangerous. A guy at the bar overheard us and asked if one of us had a license. We said yes, and he told us we could take his car while he was eating breakfast...cool! We made it a pretty quick trip, and Reason scared us a few times by almost missing stop signs (oops!), but it was fun to just be in a car, no!t a shuttle, driving around town. I also spent some time with I.B...his ankle doesn't look great. He bought an ace bandage, and was spending the day on the balcony, with it on ice, elevated. It looks like Dutch's ankle did when he rolled it over. I really hope that resting it here for a few days will take care of it. I definitely want to see him get back on the Trail! Reason, Cruiser and I said our goodbyes and headed out. Once we got over the bridge on the far side of the river, we had a fairly steep climb. Cruiser kept saying that we were kicking some mountain...um...butt. I should mention that Team Creason and VSA and the Dude are members of the Booyah Brigade...motto: "We're goin' to Maine...booyah!" I can see that I'm in for some aggressive hiking! We made it to the ridgeline, and Snot Rocket and Iceberg Slim passed us. When we arrived at the first shelter for a break, VSA and Dude were already there. Dude was on his cell phone, talking about what sounded !like a medical condition. When we rounded the corner of the shelter, we could see that Snot Rocket was shaking, scratching his stomach and his eyes were red. He had told us when he passed us that he had gotten stung by something. Clearly he was having a reaction to it. He was not, however, having difficulty breathing, which made me feel a little bit better. VSA, Dude and Winnebago were headed in the direction of the road, so they took his things and hiked out with him, to meet an ambulance at the road. I hope he is doing okay! We ended up taking longer at the shelter than planned, and considered staying there for the night. It was just a bit after 6:00, though, and it would mean a 24 mile day tomorrow. Although we could hear another thunderstorm gearing up (oh, yeah, forgot to mention that we did a portion of the climb in a thunderstorm...ah, this is the AT I remember!), we decided we needed to get the miles in tonight. We raced along the Trail. Met the others who were slacking back and exchanged info about the Trail we would be see!ing ahead. We continued on...some of the fastest hiking I've done in a long time! The Trail wasn't that bad or rocky for the rest of the day's trek. Cruiser beat us to the shelter, which is huge and lovely, and came back to tell us there were a bunch of sleeping people here, but there was still room for us. We ate a cold dinner and put out our sleeping pads...night time...and I'm back on the Trail with Reason and Cruiser. Life is good!