Date: 2018-05-19
From: Harpers Ferry 

To: Rocky Run Shelter 
Miles today: 12.1
Weather: light rain

AT - 5/19 Day 18 Mudder Back on the trail again today. We got a ride from a couple of gentlemen, who were staying at the hostel with us, to the Weverton Cliffs trailhead on the MD side. In all, that bypassed about 4 miles of trail. The MD side was not closed but the ATC has been reporting MD has issues on the trail and hikers should remain off the trail. We couldn¢t stay at the hostel, so we decided to move on, according to our schedule. The hike started out raining as usual. It was a soft rain but would soak through unless you protect yourself. So for the first time, we decided to wear both our rain coats and rain pants. We were determined to try to stay dry today. Even the trail started out nice. Eventually, the rain coat came off but the rain pants remained on for the day. That was to help keep the mud splatter off our pants. Yes, the trail turned so muddy it was hard to decide which side of the trail was better to walk on, so we spent the day crossing from one side to the other. I have to wonder how many additional miles we racked up crossing the trail all day. Since this is about day 4 of continuous rain the puddles are thick with brown liquid. You can¢t see the ground and many times there isn¢t a way to ride the high side of the trail. You just have to walk through the puddle and hope for the best. Hence the name of today¢s post - Mudders.We stopped at the first shelter we came to, the about 2 miles into the day. There were 2 young girls that just started their flip flop hike the day before. They didn¢t know each other when they started but I think they will try to stick close together. They don¢t have trail names yet. They both arrived separately but ate lunch at the same park we ate at, Garthland State Park. At the end of the day they both showed up separately at the shelter we stayed at, Rocky Run Shelter.The trail wasn¢t terribly busy for a weekend day. The weather just kept people away. The only people you saw were backpacking. In the afternoon a group of about 8 kids went by and a little later on another 10. They said they were hiking with their high school for credit. I sure would have been worried if I was the teacher in charge if anything bad happened during that storm. They were hiking the entire MD portion of the trail from PA south to Harpers Ferry, about 40 miles. We also saw some Boy Scouts out on an overnight trip.We arrived at Rocky Run Shelter and were surprised that no one was there. David agreed to try sleeping in the shelter with me and use the limited equipment we have for sleeping pads, etc. We are set up for hanging our hammocks but when we get down to the Smokies we may have to sleep in a shelter and he wanted to see how it would be. Not long after we got set up a group called the NOBO Horde (north bound horde) started showing up. We heard about this group of kids from our friends we met the other week, Irish and Beach Bum. These kids have been together since GA all through the snow and nasty weather this spring. I recognized some of the names so I had to ask if they were the Horde. Yes they were. Anyhow, we thought we would have the shelter to ourselves but in the end we had about 12 people in our shelter, 4 more in hammocks in the campground and another 4 in a second old shelter.  It was kind of interesting listening to the members of the Hoard get to know the 2 new girls as they sat around talking at the picnic table as I drifted to sleep.Ascent 2,346 ftDescent 1,691 ft~Desert Rose