Date: 2007-04-28
From: Trindle Rd

To: Ironmasters House
Miles today: 23.5

Saturday, April 28, 2007Trindle Rd to Ironmasters House, Pine Grove Furnace State Park, 23.5 milesAt 5:50AM it¢s light enough to hike. At 6, Sweet Sixteen starts out from our home base at Ironmasters. I drive to Trindle Rd, delayed a little because there¢s no northbound exit off 81 at Trindle Rd, and I don¢t realize I¢m past Trindle Rd until I see the exit for Camp Hill.On Trindle Rd next to a fertile farm field there¢s a large sign saying ¢For industrial and commercial development.¢ The character of this area round Carlisle is changing rapidly. Today¢s weather is clear and cool. I take the soaked Element tent out of the plastic bag and spread it over the roof and hood of the parked Element to dry out while we¢re hiking.Start 7:10AM. Today¢s a day I won¢t be taking photos or soaking in the surroundings because it¢s a high mile day and I¢m already an hour behind.Just before York Rd, Rte 74, hello to section-hiker Just Steve. He did some hiking on the AT in the south a few years ago. He¢s out trying to get back into hiking again. This trip will take him from Pine Grove Furnace State Park to the town of Pine Grove, about 63 highway miles apart.In the protected corridor flanking the AT, everything is dew-soaked and sparkling, green shoots, the greenest of greenest of greens.Stile into a horse pasture. 2 chestnut horses in the distance to my left, one with an elongated AT blaze on its nose.Path littered with round white cherry blossom petals, which will dry to nothing. This is my fifth year ¢walking with spring¢ on the AT.8:30AM at the closed ATC office. At the Boiling Springs pond, hello to a man out walking his husky. ¢Love my huskies.¢Passing train blocks the trail for 3 minutes, a short wait compared to Erwin.Orange and white marmalade cat at the edge of a field. Samson.9:10AM I leave the fields and enter the woods. From the top of the Center Point Knob I see a woman, birdwatching, over by the junction with White Rocks Trail. I hang back, not to disturb her.10:15AM pass by trail to Alec Kennedy Shelter without stopping.Hello Detour! I haven¢t seen you since Georgia in March 2006. Lots of stories. Hiking in Maine with his brother on rickety span over a raging river. His brother snaps a photo, blinding Detour. He waits. Opens his eyes and his brother snaps another!Detour¢s left a book, ¢A Child Called It¢ in the James Fry Shelter. He tells me to take it and read it. He recommends another book, ¢The Girl Who Knew Tom Gordon.¢My reading has taken a back seat to hiking. I¢m saving reading for when I can¢t walk.I tell Detour the hike ahead is easy. He says ¢the hike ahead of you isn¢t.¢Detour has hiked 12 miles today and he has not seen Sweet Sixteen. How can this be? Is she ahead of him? Was she at Alec Kennedy when I walked past?Hello to Solitary Man, out for a day hike to map out the side trails for a group of girls who will be hiking in June. He¢s hiked all of PA and MD on the AT.At the top of rise after Whiskey Spring Rd is a bunch of boulder rocks. Trail winds among the boulders, a nice change. So much variety here in PA. I look out for snakes, this is a place they¢d like. At one spot, it¢s a little hard for me to get down over the rock, but I manage, and then who¢s there but Sweet Sixteen!12:45 a black lab with a collar overtakes me from behind, running hard and panting, startling me. I greet it and it runs back. A little later that same lab, now leashed, appears with its owners, a couple out for a run on the trail.Hello to NOBO Fruitfly from Cleveland hoping to summit Katahdin July 1 and NOBO Joe. They met Sweet Sixteen in Maryland. I tell them she¢s a little ahead and they may catch her today.Scaly purple-barked 3 needled pine trees.Easy trail from 94 to 34.Lush swamp full of skunk cabbage and a few marsh marigolds in bloom.Hello to a woman, man and young man day-hiking.I take side trail to the James Fry Shelter. I put a note in the register in memory of Spinner¢s mother: Twenty years ago, on this day, the 28th of April, Jean Gilbert, a beloved Mom, departed this life. Rest in peace, Jean.Detour¢s register entry warns hikers to watch out, rattlers can be silent. I add that we encountered a noisy rattling timber rattler on Shikellimy Rocks on Peters Mountain north of Duncannon a few days ago.I pack out Detour¢s book.5:15PM Hello to Natz, the hiker from Washington who we met at Ironmasters. She says to tell Donna that she¢s doing OK, heading for the Fry Shelter tonight. Still having foot pain, but is hiking through it.Out about 7:30, whipped!   The last piece of trail through the park is over sharp gravel and I feel every point through the Crocs¢ soft soles. Sweet Sixteen has gotten in earlier. She lives up to her trailname! Sweetly going out to the car and carrying in my stuffsacks! Thank you, friend!!! A warm shower feels great. Especially this one which has a pull-down seat where you can sit and wash your tired feet with the hand-held water wand.I make salad and chili. Sweet Sixteen soaks her sore blistered feet in Epsom salts, provided by Donna.