Date: 2017-08-22
From: Highway 501

To: Rausch Gap shelter
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: few clouds

I'd barely emerged from Craig's car and was yet to start today's hike when I spotted an unfamiliar hiker crossing the road. That's how I met Sriracha, and while I was explaining to him how I'd been following his name in hut registers for months I heard a voice behind me cry out: "Rolling Thunder!"It was Dirt and Switchback, who I'd last seen nearly 700 miles earlier as we descended the Presidential Range in New Hampshire and had been hoping to catch for weeks.The extra member of the crew, Sweetblood, was ahead somewhere after making an earlier start. They'd all been staying at 501 shelter, which is famous on the trail partly for being an actual hut rather than a three-sided lean to but mostly because a local pizza restaurant will deliver there.It was great to catch up as we walked on towards the 1000 mile marker for sobos -- something that had seemed impossibly far-off in those early months in Maine and New Hampshire but was now just four miles away. Despite the momentousness of this landmark, no marker existed for it -- until a week or so ago, when one had been constructed from stones by Scout and Nature Boy.I still remember reaching the 1000-mile marker on the PCT, which had been after crossing the high Sierra in the big snow year of 2006, and that it was the first time I'd hiked that far. There was no equivalent point on the CDT because each group effectively hikes their own variation of the trail, meaning that the 1000-mile marker is different for each group.Nobody in this group had hiked that far before, and I recognised in them that same feeling I'd felt 11 years earlier.From there the trail followed along the crest of the ridge, making for fast travel until the ridge ended and dropped down to where a major motorway crossed.Our little group had been trucking along at this point, enjoying the ability to walk and talk, but when the trail headed steeply downwards, the difference between 20-something and 50-something knees became more apparent and I dropped off their breakneck pace.I caught them again as the trail headed under the motorway, where some benevolent trail crew has installed some crude benches. The others were in situ, having concluded it was a perfect place for lunch.As we ate and chatted, three other hikers came the other way: Parkour was celebrating his four-month trailversary today but still hoped to reach Katahdin without flipping, which seemed an ambitious increase in pace. The others with him, Bulk and Johnny Appleseed, seemed more likely to make it.Would these be our last nobos? It certainly seemed like it, since the others all seemed to have either flipped or skipped from Harper's Ferry.But I also predicted there would be a truly delusional nobo somewhere behind them, harbouring the notion that Maine will be no more taxing than Maryland.Dirt, Sriracha, Sweetblood and Switchback were aiming to do 22 miles today and then 25 the day after to reach Duncannon. But since they'd done a series of short days recently and I'd done some long ones, I was aiming at an easier schedule that would get me into town half a day later.What that meant was I only had to do six more miles to Rausch Gap shelter, while they were aiming for a campsite five miles further, so I opted to stay in the cool of the bridge until the heat of the day had eased a little more.I farewelled them, but knowing I'd catch them again soon enough when Dirt's mother and cousin arrived to hike to the halfway mark with them. They were a fun group who I'd like to hike with again.The trail headed through a formerly thriving town, based around coal mining and railway engineering, of which not a single sign remained other than some old road and railway beds.Even with a 90-minute head start the others had had, I caught them at the shelter, where they'd gone to fill up with water before their climb up to the ridgetop.I was happy to settle into the deserted shelter, and doubly so when rain began to fall. It quickly turned torrential and unlike nearly all similar previous storms, it went on for the best part of an hour.Life is good, but I hope it's equally good for the others on top of the ridge, and that they'd got to camp and put their tents up in time...AT fact of the day: The famous rocks of "Rocksylvania" have eased up, with their place seemingly taken by gnats. These have a habit of dive bombing into people's eyes (although for reasons unknown they leave me alone) but the others have adopted a local habit of using Sassafras leaves on their heads as a natural gnat repellant. I don't know if it works, but it definitely looks odd...