Date: 2015-06-17
From: Darlington Shelter

To: Too Close to the Road (Mi 1155.3)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

So I¢d like to begin todays post with a discussion on trail edict¢¦when entering a shelter either turn off, dim, or most preferably turn on the red light. Place your bag on a hook or gently on the floor not slamming it down in exhaustion. There¢s no need to debate the days merits in the middle of the night wait till morning and everyone else to be up. Lastly don¢t do miles you can¢t handle, sure you may have done 28 miles but it took you 16 hours and you didn¢t get in till midnight is just reckless. That all being sad I¢m sure you can tell the shelter was rudely awoken by about 4 hikers come midnight thank god someone said something.At the shelter this morning was a hiker I¢d met in the Shenandoah¢s along with Marbles another flip flopper named Ripped and Cody Coyote the guy who had that fire going last night. I was up by about 6 and all packed up ready to go come 7 but I got delayed with a safety meeting and didn¢t take off for another hour. I¢m envious of the older hikers they do such a good job of getting up and going I seem to struggle but I¢ll get it down eventually.I took off up the trail and didn¢t realize I should have been going downhill until I got about 5 minutes up the trail and saw the viewpoint from last night. Well now I¢ve seen the valley in the morning and night I guess. Ran into a group that camped up on the hill last night and blew by them in anger sprinkled with a bit of embarrassment had a little laugh with them all about it though. Got into Buchanan around 1 and decided to pass on the Doyle regrettably, didn¢t even grab a beer I hit to say but it looked so disgusting in there I couldn¢t even.Passed through town quick and wasn¢t much impressed with it but as I was getting to the interstate I saw the beautiful red awning of Sheetz glowing off in the distance and hoped on my fun to check the distance. Half a mile; it¢s hot dogs for lunch. As I made my way down the interstate I realized I was surrounded by a truckers paradise with strip clubs lining the roadways leading to the gas stations sheetz and love¢s oh the irony. I crushed 6 hot dogs and felt disgusting immediately afterwards but so worth it, first sheetz of the trail.I set back out for the trail but was slowed down when I saw the climb back up out of the valley and town but it didn¢t end up being as bad as I thought it¢d be. I got to the shelter right out of town and contemplated staying but I really wanted to do a 20 miler and was contemplating pushing on. I ran into the group I met going out of Harpers Ferry again and they asked if I was shooting for the next shelter so I decided I¢d push on maybe joining them later. Oddly enough I ran into Chief again who was out on another section hiker with a new lady friend. I asked if he was gonna make it to the next shelter but they were pulling off at the road up ahead. I only made it a couple of more miles myself before I didn¢t feel like hiking any more, it started getting a little grey out and I really wanted a fire so I settled for a nice flat spot with a fire ring. Shoulda known it wasn¢t an ideal site when I saw trash in the fire pit but I already had my pack off and didn¢t feel much like moving again. My gut was right and I must have seen about 12 people from town going by to the local view point, hate when that happens.