Date: 2003-06-10
From: Alec Kennedy Shelter

To: Darlington Shelter
Miles today: 18.2
Weather: scattered clouds

If I've done the math right, this is my 101st day on the Appalachian Trail.My daily average on the first half was 10.86 mile a day. That includes zero days, though.That's not good enough to get the job done. But I am not worried; I needed those early slow days to get strong. It took me a long time to get strong, a fact that puzzles me, given how quickly the Long Trail's month toughened us up. I still don't feel the girdle of core strength I had at the end of the Long Trail (27 days) last August, but I suspect the Whites and southern Maine will take care of that. It wasn't really until the Shenandoahs that I felt I hit my stride and could chug out the same long day as anybody else. A 13-something daily average is needed to finish by August 31, and I am doing more than that now; even on resupply days I get close to that. Though I plan to finish in mid-to-late September, not August, I'll need rest days and time off for my brother's July wedding.Still, I try to push along, doing a 20-miler every other day. Just putting a little extra in the bank for that wedding week, plus time to slow down and enjoy the rugged White Mountains of NH, and southern Maine.This morning we leave the rocky hills for the flat farm fields of the Cumberland Valley, elevation around 400 feet. Wouldn't you know it, but the day that the sun finally decides to come out strongly is the day we leave "the long green tunnel" of shady protection. Nature, she is toying with us.The sweet-sour smell of silage drifts on the morning air, harking me back to my Wisconsin farm days. The fields are sodden. The farmers must be frustrated, itching to get their crops in the heavy ground.Friendly marathoner Buckeye and his water bottle passes us again, and comments (again) that I am hobbling. He suggests a silicone heel cup to lesson heel strike, since that seems to be where I am limping. I wasn't even aware that I was. I got the length of his upcoming race wrong yesterday - Buckeye is leaving the AT briefly to compete in his tenth ONE HUNDRED mile race.He also said there will be more rain in the next five days. Oh well...Boiling Springs is a charming little stop. The town is on the National Register of Historic Places. Natural springs "boil" forth at a high rate of discharge, feeding the crystalline lake. I can't believe how clear the water is.This town makes me nostalgic for some reason, with its lovely, central pond, freshly-painted white gazebos, park benches, duck feeders and fishermen. This is the middle of the work week, and people are strolling as if it were Saturday.We leave our packs on the porch of the regional ATC office, and go off in search of food and coffee. Turnaround plops on the porch swing, and Fido joins her. What a leisurely life we must appear to have to passersby.The trail north also leads through sunny fields. The hot, grassy steam rolls up from the ground to meet us, but no one is complaining after all that cold rain. We pass vast fields of cereal grains, dairies and fat horses in well-kept pastures. The honeysuckle and wild rose grow rampant in the hedgerows we traverse, drenching the air with their heavy floral scent; songbirds flit about the greenery in abundance. I see a young woodchuck, and later, a grey fox jumps across the Trail.Notes catches up and walks with me for an hour or so. He tells of his side trip to Baltimore to visit his aunt. We are crossing a cut hayfield, where the farmer is turning his hay. Suddenly, I step in a hidden rabbit hole and go down, twisting my ankle, which stays upright. It looks horrible. Everything feels fine legwise though, and the new mown hay smells great. I am laughing hard despite Notes' concern. The sun is shining, for pete's sake!Notes gets off on Rt 1l, and gives me his extra water. Believe it or not, this is a waterless stretch, though you couldn't tell it by me. Water, water everywhere! Muddy!A fellow comes southbound down the Trail. He has the thru-hiker look. "Hey, you're going the wrong way," I teased him. "You're right about that," he said, shaking his head. His name was Fly By, and he'd started his thru-hike April 1. But he'd gotten a stress fracture, and had come home to PA to heal. He was getting back on soon, and testing out the leg on easier stretches. We wished each other luck.Just Do It catches up and joins me after getting a quickie boot repair in Carlisle. We cross over the Pennsylvania Turnpike together, making pumping noises with our arms like little kids. The truckers blow their horns and we wave back with our poles, and laugh and laugh. It is a day for giddiness, being sunny and all.Soon, we're walking in lowland sucking mud, through cow pastures and woods. My "new" sour-smelling shoes are now plastered with cow muck. If you thought they smelled bad before...We walk to Davis Work Farm, an ATC outpost. Turnaround is there, and she waves from the picnic bench. We go over and sit in the shade.In the register, I see my Long Trail friend Valley Girl was here just two days ago, with much comment about the cow muck."Sometimes when I'm walking - no, trudging - through a creamy mixture of mud, petrol and manure, I wonder if the $66 million to get the Trail off roads in Cumberland County was the wisest investment the ATC ever made.." wrote a hiker named Hazmat.Ha! Thru-hikers are all critics.I DO wash my shoes off completely in the spigot here, as well as my filthy, muddy socks. They're already wet, why not CLEAN and wet? I set them in the hot SUN to dry.Turnaround and I decide to cook our supper right there, since it is shady and cool, and the spigot will let us wash our dishes handily. Just Do It sees we are buddied up, and hikes his responsible self down the Trail. But he leaves his data book behind.We bring it with us when we take the highwater route around a submerged bridge. We've hardly gone a mile when Ben reappears - he had come back to get his book. We walked out of the valley and up the new ridge of mountains together, the three of us, including a steep bit near the end. All of a sudden, there is a clearing in the tree canopy and we can see what we've done today - walked down the far ridge of mountains, across the Cumberland Valley (also called the Lehigh Valley, I'm told), and up the new ridge. It is dusk, the time just before the lights go on. It is breezy and beautiful on this vista, spreading our days work out before us, and we cool down here in the humid air, chatting, resting, renewing our insides.When we get to the shelter, late, there is still room, a rare thing. Lucky too - there are thunderclouds on the horizon. Commander in Chief built the fire to welcome Just Do It, our resident pyro. For once, it is a hot evening and I don't even change to warmer clothes. As I fall asleep, the fire throws flickers on the shelter roof, and a full moon plays tag with the clouds.