Date: 2009-05-15
From: Bear Den Hostel

To: Harper's Ferry, WV
Miles today: 20.3

Fri May 15, Day 66: Today we made it to Harper¢s Ferry, West Virginia, the psychological halfway point on the AT. What a phenomenal experience this hike has been so far. I can¢t describe the feeling - the best way to sum it up is simply fantastic. Making it here is a milestone in and of itself. One thousand and thirteen miles hiked. The official halfway point is still a little ways up the trail. The mind game that the trail plays on you certainly sets in so I¢m glad to be here.This is important: I appreciate everybody¢s support and words of encouragement. It means so much every time I read a guest book entry. Please keep ¢em up, they really give me some extra fuel to make it through the day when I am able to log in and check the Trail Journals website. Leaving Bear¢s Den Hostel was hard because it was such a great place to stay. It was only 18 miles into Harper¢s Ferry. The terrain wasn¢t too bad. After we left Bear's Den the weather really got muggy. It was kind of damp, the humidity set in - just as soon as you got out in it and started hiking you started sweating. That was no fun, but we took plenty of breaks. Fairly soon after we started hiking this mornning Hot Wheels was about 30 feet in front of me and all of a sudden jumped over to his right. I heard the rattling of a very large rattlesnake. When I got up to it I took a great picture (I think) and then that thing started to coil up. It was focused in on me, I was about five feet away from it. It would not let me out of its sight. As it started to coil up tight I knew something bad was going to happen so I backed away, grabbed a stick and my hiking poles, and made a wide arc around it. I¢m glad I didn¢t have my mp3 player on because I would not have heard the rattle, so my mp3 player is getting packed away. My understanding is between Maryland and Pennsylvania there will be more rattlesnake sightings so I¢ll be on the lookout for that. After getting into Harper¢s Ferry we hit the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC) Headquarters and immediately got our picture taken at the front door and logged ourselves in as thru-hikers on the AT. I am officially hiker #58 in the 2009 AT hiker season to reach Harper¢s Ferry. The lady in the ATC office said that during the same week that I started more than 300 hikers left Springer Mountain. Either the attrition rate has kicked in or they haven¢t all made it up here. I don¢t know which it is, but that was a pretty interesting statistic for her to mention. There is not a whole lot here in Harper¢s Ferry so I¢m glad I got a food drop. I got my mail packages and found that my old buddy Wes Payne and his wife Carol sent me a very nice Trail Magic package with Daddy Ray fig bars, Jolly Ranchers, and a picture of them when they were in Sweden sitting on ice furniture sipping on beverages in full snowmobile gear! Wes wrote a nice letter and said ¢Hey think about this when you are out there during those very very hot days in the summer that¢s up ahead.¢ Thanks Wes and Carol for the fantastic package and the Trail Magic, those Daddy Ray fig bars didn¢t last long! Click here for audio journal