Date: 2017-08-24
From: Peter's Mountain shelter

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 11.4

Nothing demonstrated the fall from grace of the town of Duncannon quite like The Doyle hotel.This elaborate old building would have been the height of opulence when it was built about 110 years ago but over the decades it -- and the town -- had gone from genteel decline and was now in a state of outright decrepitude. This was reflected in the price: $25 a night for a room, which was a quarter of what I'd paid a couple of weeks earlier in New York for a truly meritless hotel next to a trailer park. Needless to say, this meant The Doyle was famous on the AT and even though hikers have notoriously low standards, the place was so grimy that its unofficial nickname on the trail was The Doylet.It was competing with one of the local churches, which took hikers in for free as part of its ministrations to the apparently destitute and homeless. Free is a tough price-point to compete against, which might explain why it seemed like no money had gone into maintenance since the owners, a pair of old hippies called Pat and Vickey Kelly bought it about 15 years ago.And since my philosophy for this hike has been to collect experiences rather than seek comfort, it seemed ideal. That morning I'd hiked along a long, flat, straight and wooded ridgeline that typified the AT in the mid Atlantics, and the only thing breaking up the monotony of this long green tunnel was regularly walking into spider webs, which seemed to be particularly bad on this section. This ridge was only broken because, over countless aeons, the Susquehanna River had cut through it. I could see the ridge continuing on the far side of the river, but the trail headed down to cross the river on a highway bridge. Just before descending, the trail offered a view across the river at Duncannon, which from that angle looked more leafy and established than I was expecting.However any delusional expectation that it would be like the manicured towns of Connecticut quickly dissipated when two strip clubs formed a gateway to the main street. It went downhill from there.The unkempt look of the houses I was walking past on the way into town hinted that this was classic Rust Belt country that had been left behind economically. I later learned that this county voted for Trump over Clinton by more than 3:1, being exactly the kind of place that is susceptible to oversimplistic populist messages by politicians. Arriving at The Doyle just before midday, I went to the bar to arrange a room and was surprised to find Pan, who I'd last seen back in Vermont and who I thought was still behind me. Over a cold Yuengling beer, he explained that in New York he'd split from his girlfriend, Tink, and had then done a series of 30-mile days but had come down with a leg injury which had forced him to take some days off in Duncannon. Every stage of that process sounded like it sucked .After all this, I had lunch and got to meet Pat and Vickey, who were friendly and quirky in equal measure, making them amusing to chat to. They hooked me up with what had once been a grand room but which now looked like a flophouse, which was exemplified by the bottom rail of the wooden window having at some point fallen off and disappeared. From the appearance of the wood around the missing part, this did not seem to have happened in recent years.But it was comfortable enough and the ceilings were high enough for the room temperature to be pleasant. It was a fine place to chill for a few hours before attending to the only other thing on my day's agenda: dinner and beer at the bar.Life is good.AT fact of the day: The Doyle is used to hikers and whether nobo, sobo or flip-flopping, they'll have been on the trail long enough to earn an appetite. Despite this, the cook did his best to talk me out of ordering a large fries because he doubted I'd be able to finish them and the cheeseburger I'd ordered. Ha! As if.