Date: 2004-06-20
From: Deer Lick Shelters

To: Quarry Gap Shelter
Miles today: 15.8
Weather: clear sky

PA Lolligag for PaThe cool of yesterday evening continued all night long and through today. That made the sleeping quite good.Mouse was with me at the shelter last night, and since she was meeting a friend at noon at Caledonia St Pk, 13.6 mi away, she left before 6 AM. I followed shortly and caught up with her near Tumbling Run Shelters (wich has a Snorers and a Non-Snorers shelter), just at the bottom of the climb up to Chimney Rocks. At the top I went to look at the view, but she continued on. The view was fine, but different from the many fine views I encountered further south. From the Shenandoah south, the mountain ranges have many individual peaks, so when there is a view the horizon is bumpy, and contains many peaks (I'm sure I saw at least 50 individual peaks each from the top of bald mountains like Chestnut Knob, The Hump and Max Patch).But since I got to Maryland (there were basically no viewpoints between the Shenandoah and Harpers Ferry) the horizon at viewpoints is essentially flat. This is because the mountains around here are ridges with no prominent peaks. To see this look at a topographical map of PA, or fly out of BWI on a clear day to any city NW of there and look down about 20 minutes after takeoff. Since I have left Harpers Ferry I have mostly been walking along the ridge of South Mountain. Essentially all of the Trail in PA east of the Susquehanna is along the ridge of Blue Mountain. So what you see from a viewpoint here is the next ridge over, and the farm land in the valley in between.PA sems to be a land of berries. As soon as we crossed the border, Mouse found a raspberry patch with abundant ripe berries in it. This morning I saw many blueberry bushes in the woods (I have been looking but haven't seen many before this) and found a patch under a powerline that was full of ripe berries. I had a wonderful 10 minutes picking and eating as many as I could before moving on.After that I got down to business and hiked on to Caledonia State Park. I was running low on water, and was walking through a stretch of trail where there are few water sources. When I got there I just knew that this was the place to spend the afternoon. There was a soda machine, a snack bar, a swimming pool, a telephone (for filing my journal entries), hundreds of picnic tables, and lots of people without being overcrowded. And besides, I was only 2.2 mi from this shelter so was in no rush to set off again.I ended up staying at Caledonia for nearly 5 hours. In that time I ate lunch, caught up on my journaling, sent other e-mails, talked to two of my kids and to some friends, and had a big dish of ice cream. I didn't get to go swimming, but all-in-all it was the perfect way to spend a Fathers' Day afternoon if it can't be spent with my kids.After Caledonia I came across the first significant stand of rhododendron I have seen since my break. It lined the Trail almost the entire length of my southbound section and I was missing it, so was quite happy to see it show up again. This shelter is an extremely well maintained shelter with two different cabins (his and hers tonight), and it sits next to a tinkling brook right in the middle of the rhododendron patch.I am now at this shelter with Mouse, with WonderLost, whom I met just North of Damascus before coming into town, and Sampler, whom I met a couple of days south of Erwin.