Date: 2017-06-11
From: Stealth camp near PA 325

To: Swatara Gap
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Up at dawn, but 5 hikers pass while I am still breaking camp. No bears came for the salmon while I slept. I have no appetite, but force myself to eat some pop tarts. I learn later some trail angels were staging a hamburger breakfast cookout at the parking lot a quarter mile behind where I camped. No matter, I'm not ravenous enough yet to eat hamburgers for breakfast.The day passes quickly. Trail is not difficult with some decent ups and downs as I climb up Sharps Mountain and go along its ridge, then down and up to Second Mountain before descending to Swatara Gap. I pass the terminus of the Horseshoe Trail, which begins 140 miles southeast in Valley Forge National Park. I've walked about 40 miles of this near home so it is a little exciting to see where it ends up. Also pass ruins of Yellow Springs village and Rausch Gap, which were based on coal and railroading in the nineteenth century but abandoned now for over a century. The bridge for the gravel access road over Rausch Creek is out and under construction. The trail is diverted via a blue-blazed detour. Like a true white-blazer I ignore this and follow the original path, passing the backhoes and scrambling down and up the construction embankments and stone-hopping across the creek. It's Sunday so no one is there to shoo me off.Military helicopters out for training exercises from Fort Indiantown Gap buzz the mountains all day. I try to listen for the birds. I catch up with Still Steve at a side trail going to "The General". Still Steve started in Georgia March 9th. I pass on seeing the unknown landmark an unknown distance off trail. Even a quarter mile means hiking another half mile roundtrip. Later, thru-hikers Giggles and Ant-Man pass me going uphill. I wonder if I will ever be that fast. I eventually catch up with Ant-Man and Renegade, who had blown by me on Friday heading for Duncannon, at the next spring. Ant-Man started March 4th in Georgia. I try to reconcile his apparent speed with the time taken to get this far. No sign of any of the folks I've left behind over the last couple days. Folks like Flash, Smash Newton, and Daddy Longlegs that I frequently see in the trail registers remain a day or two ahead.I hear rustling in the undergrowth often as I scare up critters near the trail. No way to know if it's just a chipmunk or squirrel or perhaps a porcupine or snake. Some more distant rustles could be deer or a coyote for all I can see. None of them want anything to do with me. Except the bugs of course. The honey bees in particular seem to think my shins are worth visiting.I reach my exit point for this leg:  Rt 72 in Swatara Gap State Park. I try to hitch a ride to get a second lunch in Lickdale two miles south but the traffic is light in this direction and the shoulder is narrow so no one bites. I call for an Uber and driver Paul from Lebanon takes me to the train station in Mount Joy 45 minutes away. He waits at a Circle K while I load up on cold iced teas. We talk about Civil War history and where the Lebanon name came from (did the bologna or the town come first?) I learn Uber tricks to get drivers to pick you up (contact them en route to give them your destination - Uber doesn't tell them until they arrive and drivers sometimes refuse if too far or too short).Now on Amtrak headed home. I'm eager to see Sara and the kids again and looking forward to some time at home.Everyone still out there stay hydrated and stay safe!