Date: 2020-08-03
From: Tentsite at mile 1172.5

To: 501 Shelter
Miles today: 23.6
Weather: clear sky

It's been two months to the day since I left Amicalola Falls with my son. 1200 miles. That's a lot of walking. Over the miles I have lots of time to calculate. Since Gatlinburg I've averaged 22 miles per day, not including two zero days. And it hasn't changed - I averaged 22 a day from Gatlinburg to Damascus, from Damascus to Waynesboro, Virginia, and from Waynesboro to Duncannon. So I feel fairly confident projecting where I'll be up until the Whites. There I expect to slow down. I am still on pace to finish in the first week of October. Four months, give or take a few days. Taking a week off with my family will hopefully recharge my batteries for the last thousand miles.I figured today would just be putting in miles, being on a nondescript ridgeline with no landmarks and virtually no other hikers. But two things made it memorable. Before either of these happened I was stung by a hornet. Where it came from I don't know. The first I was aware of it was when I felt the painful sting on my left knee. I instinctively smacked it and it was no more, but it had already done its damage. Perhaps I'd walked into its path. It seemed like a random attack. This new pain above the left knee oddly balanced out the residual soreness below my right knee, so I no longer favored one over the other. But the first of today's really memorable events came next. After crossing Rausch Gap the trail waded into an enormous swamp formed by a prodigious beaver dam. Signs warn you of the obstacle and provide an alternate route. Guthooks is full of gung-ho comments like "don't you dare take the alternate!" and "are we hiking a bicycle path or the AT?". But there are plenty of cautions like "you will get wet up to your waist" and "I thought I would try it until I saw it". Well, in the end I figured what am I doing out here if I'm going to take the easy route? How bad can it really be?Bad.Yes, it was every bit as awful as the comments said. It was intimidating just to walk up to it. The water stretches to left and right beyond your sight. And way over yonder you can see where it ends, a good hundred yards across. Trees with blazes stand in a line across it, submerged in the muck. The water is black and completely opaque. You've no idea what's under there or how deep it goes. In most places it's thigh or waist deep. There are downed trees everywhere to navigate around. And as some commenters mentioned, there are probably lots of creepy crawly things swimming around.But there is a trick to minimizing the awfulness. Walk on top of the beaver dam. Even the dam is submerged, but only a few inches. Stay on top and only your ankles get wet. And everything below them of course. But walking on top of something you can't see, which is no more than a pile of sticks and mud, and which shifts and sighs under your weight, with deep muck on both sides waiting to suck you in, is not for the faint of heart. I took one step at a time, feeling forward with my trekking poles. Sometimes I made a wrong move and went knee deep into muck. Other times I wrestled downed trees to get over them without stepping off the dam. Early on I saw a bog bridge - one of those small 2x6 trestles laid across mud by kind trail builders - just a couple of inches below the water. So I stepped onto it, and immediately it began to sink without stopping. It had merely been floating and was not supported at all. It was probably the bridge over the original small stream before the beavers arrived. Now it's just more debris. I quickly found the dam and stepped back.If you stuck close to the blazed trees you'd be swimming across the swamp. Going over the dam I managed to escape with just muddy shoes, socks, and calves. I'm glad I didn't switch to sandals. They would have been lost to the sucking mud in one of my missteps. The other highlight of my day, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, was a last minute visit from my sister Emily. She and her family live in the Hershey area, and it did not occur to me until this morning that the trail would go within about fifteen miles of them. But I had no service all morning so it was not until I summited Second Mountain that I could contact her. She dropped everything and came out with my five-year-old nephew Sammy, meeting me in Swatara Gap state park. And she brought sandwiches, cold drinks, and fruit! I was thrilled to see them both. In fact they are the first family I've seen since my son flew back home after the first week in Georgia. My nephew is a joy, always happy and energetic. He showed me his Jedi ninja moves, and I showed him how to use the trekking poles (not for Jedi ninja moves!) Only two miles later I was out of the park and back on the inaccessible ridgeline, so it was only Emily's quick reaction that allowed us to meet at all. What a wonderful sister I am blessed with!Late in the day it started to rain. It was too light to don a poncho but enough to eventually make me feel wet. To balance it out, it brought a refreshing cool wind. I was headed for the 501 shelter, close to route 501 and famous for the ability to have pizza delivered. But I noticed the pizza place noted in the guide was closed on Mondays. Today is Monday! Aargh! Disappointed, I gave up my dreams of town food and just hoped the shelter would be open. It's a fully-enclosed building with a caretaker. Guthook comments suggested it might be closed. After what seemed an eternity of traipsing over rocks in the last mile I finally reached the shelter. A man with a long black and white beard was coming out. "Are you the caretaker?" "Nope, just a hiker staying here." "Excellent, then I'm staying too!" The guy, named Jaws after a passing resemblance (without the beard) to the seven-foot tall James Bond villain, is sectioning from Daleville to Connecticut. When Jaws saw the caretaker earlier, the caretaker said that since it was raining he didn't know anything about Jaws being there. Then he offered Jaws a foot bath with Epsom salts.  Even better news, a menu for another pizza place was in the shelter. This one was open. So I got my town food, and a two-liter bottle of Coke. Wasn't a lot of water on trail today.It started pouring during the night, remnants of the hurricane. So glad I'm in hard shelter and not tenting tonight.