Date: 2006-06-20
From: Thornton Gap 

To: Terrapin Station Hostel
Miles today: 23.9

I woke up at the usual 5:45am today and left my sister's for the trail. I had a very relaxing zero day yesterday doing the normal town chores while Deb went about her normal artist routine. Carol is taking home two portraits of me that Debbie painted. I am flattered.Late in the day, Deb's neighbor, Turtle Bill '03, dropped in for drinks and stayed for dinner. He had a serious back injury in Maine after flip-flopping and wasn't able to complete his hike. We had a good time recounting anecdotes about our hikes. Today, Carol dropped me off at the gap, and after fond farewells I got started at 9:15am. By 12:45pm, I emerged from the green tunnel at the Elk Wallow Wayside, planning a lunch of cheeseburger, fries and one of the blackberry milkshakes that are famous here. Alas, blackberry milkshakes are available Thursday through Sunday only. I settled for a pepsi and cheeseburger, and had a pint of butter pecan ice cream for dessert, washed down by a rootbeer. What a contrast between this and dthe wayside a few days back!Got back on the trail at 1:45pm intending to decide at the turnoff for the shelter whether to stay or move on to here. Kentucky and Giggles had plopped down by the shelter side trail when I got there around 4:00pm. I joined them and chowed down some of my trail mix while I considered the question, "Should I stay, or should I go?". I decided to move on, as I knew Veto was staying here at Terrapin Station Hostel and I wanted to find out his plans. It was 10 more miles and my E.T.A was between 8 and 9:00 pm. As we prepared to leave, I offered to let K&G go on ahead, but Kentucky said I was hiking faster, and I soon left them in the distance.Overall I hiked about 25 miles including "off-trail" in 11 hours hiking time for an average speed of about 2.4 mph. I am surprised at how strongly I am now hiking, but I plan shorter days the rest of the way into Harpers Ferry.There were two intermediate points with water where I could bail out and stealth camp. But I was feeling good, so I gorped up at the first and got water from the piped spring. A snickers bar carried me through to here, arriving at 8:30pm.Throughout the hike there were several viewpoints into the valleys which I checked out. Toward evening I encountered many "tame" deer in the trail. I had to clack my hiking poles together several times to persuade one pair to move off the trail. They won't be so tame now that I'm out of the park. Mike, Ga-Me '97 who runs the hostel in the walkout basement and garage of his house on the edge of the woods, is a part-time park ranger. He says the only population control is the cars.Veto was still here, and his foot is now better than I it was all the time I was hiking with him. I chilled out and ate my freeze-dried meal while catching up with him. He is going home to TN instead of meeting his wife in Harpers, but may skip ahead to rejoin me in PA. I gave him my schedule so he'll know where I am.It doesn't sound like many are going to observe Hike Naked Day tomorrow on the summer solstice, but I will long enough to get the self-timer photo that Carol wants. There is a full house of about 12 hikers here tonight. I heard from Dan/NoPliers that BigFoot is back on the trail and hiking strongly along with GreyGoose. They are about a day behind. Weatherman is here along with many others.