Date: 2003-06-20
From: Eagles Nest Shelter

To: Eckville Shelter
Miles today: 23.8
Weather: light rain

23.8 miles from Eagles Nest Shelter to the Eckville Shelter. I got up early this morning. About a quarter to 6. I was the first one up in the shelter. I went about my business as far as getting my stuff together and eating some cereal and putting on the footwear stuff. Got moving right at 6:45. I started off¢¦I thought I started off easy. Mainly because the previous day I had pushed so hard. I had done almost a 33 mile day. I wanted to make sure I took it easy. It didn¢t really turn out to be that easy I guess. I made it 8.3 miles into Port Clinton by 10:00¢¦.actually before 10:00¢¦almost exactly three hours. It had just started drizzling when I walked in to Port Clinton. I was down by the railroad yard which was really cool. Apparently it was very close to Reading, PA so it was the Reading Railroad. You had to cross a little bridge to go in to Clinton which was a very small town. It started drizzling a little bit harder. I walked down and saw first..the sign for the Appalachian Outfitters. When I walked into the Appalachian Outfitters they were just then opening up and they opened up at 10:00. So, I browsed there a little bit and was on my way out and who would show up there but Bag O Tricks. He¢s one of the local AT guys or trail angels or whatever you want to call them. He wanted to know how I had gotten here so fast and I told him the miles that I was doing. Then I ran off and walked about a half an hour down in the rain to the Three C¢s restaurant. I put my backpack outside and went in and ordered a breakfast¢¦a slammer.. which was their version of the Denny¢s Grand Slam only better¢¦tasting anyway. Two pancakes, two eggs, two sausages, two strips of bacon and I ordered two slices of toast as well. I also had a couple cups of coffee. After I ordered that I ordered some sausage gravy and biscuits as well. There were several locals in there. They all had expressed great interest in how far I had come and what it was like to hike. I got asked a lot of questions. Then some other gentleman by the name of Greg with a bandana on his head sat down next to me. He was apparently very religious. He told me he was there with a church convention. I talked with him while I was eating breakfast and he ended up offering to take me down to the gas station to buy some food which I took him up on. I went down to the gas station with him and then he came back and dropped me off over close to the post office. Then I walked up to the post office only to find out that my mail had not shown up. Apparently, I¢m running 5-6 days ahead of time. I¢m outrunning my mail drops. I ended up going back to the outfitter and purchased some more candy bars and some more freeze dried food and stuff. Enough to last me three or four days to Delaware Gap. It was a very expensive proposition to buy food there. I also bought a new valve for my water bottle which I apparently had lost because I can¢t find it now. These new boots that I have, that are made by Garmont, are wonderful boots to wear. They give me no problem whatsoever but¢¦they get wet immediately. They¢re not even close to waterproof. Even walking through wet grass my socks get soaked immediately. So, I was going to try some way to seal them so I would be able to use them. All they had there was some stuff which I did not like and didn¢t want to get. Number one..they had to be put on dry boots and my boots weren¢t gonna be dry any time soon. I also got another waterproof bag because at some point I¢m gonna have to start carrying wet clothes in a separate thing to avoid everything else getting wet which is starting to happen because I keep everything in basically the same place. The dry clothes get wet from the wet clothes and so on. I walked out of the outfitters with my food and whatever else I had bought. The gentleman inside there told me if I wanted to buy cigarettes the only place in town was to go to the Port Clinton Hotel which was a block away. I walked over to the Port Clinton Hotel. It was definitely starting to rain harder now. I walked in the Port Clinton Hotel and there were all the people that had been at the shelter the night before¢¦Fly-by, Trog, Songbird, Songbird¢s partner and there were a couple of other thru hikers. I can¢t remember their names. That place was packed and they were all eating big meals and drinking beers. So I sat down and had a couple of Yeunlings with them and a long island ice tea. Then I got out there and started walking. By that time it was 1:00 and I was very ambitious. I was feeling good after having eaten so much. I was feeling basically indestructible which¢¦ especially in the last two weeks but even more so in the last week or so¢¦that¢s when I really started putting on the big miles. I just feel so good. Especially at the beginning of the day when I can walk at an incredible pace. I actually feel good about it. I could actually almost run up the road this morning. It¢s just unbelievable. I feel like I¢m probably in the best shape of my life right now.   Being a little ambitious I had set a destination for the Allentown Shelter which was 22 miles out of town and this was at 1:00 in the afternoon. I figured that I could basically get there about 8:00 or 8:30 if I kept the pace. I set a vicious pace going out. I kept it up for basically the whole time. They only problem was it had turned from a light rain to a heavy, heavy downpour with high winds and the trail was cluttered and became more so as I went along. But regardless, the hike out of Port Clinton was a 1000 foot ascent and I took it at full blast and was still doing good and kept on walking for a long, long time. On to about 3:30 or 4:00 or so it had been raining so hard that the trail (which was actually a road at this point) was flat under water. Up to my ankles. I had been wearing waterproof socks. Apparently the waterproof socks weren¢t completely waterproof when it comes to walking hours and hours in ankle deep water. Actually in some places¢¦at one place I can remember¢¦I sunk down to the top of my calves¢¦almost to my knees in water and mud. It was ridiculous. I had heard earlier on the radio that there was a flash flood warning and as I was walking down the road I could see that was actually the case. The water was running so rapidly off the mountains that it was just overpowering the trails, the roads¢¦everything. Little creeks that had just been dripping with water and a couple feet wide were now sections of 20-30 foot raging rivers. Just flooding down and cutting¢¦right before my very eyes¢¦cutting a new creek. About 5:00¢¦I had it pretty well timed out that I could still make it to the Allentown Shelter by about 8:00 or 8:30¢¦but decided that after walking in the rain now for a good 5 hours that I was just gonna give that up because it would have to be an additional 7-8 miles or so. I decided to stop at the Eckville Shelter instead. There was too much water, rain and cold. What was happening was the temperature was dropping rapidly and the high wind were just getting to me. I was getting miserable and it didn¢t seem worth it to run the extra 7 miles or whatever¢¦.to spend the extra 2 12 hours out in the rain. So, I booked it over to the Eckville Shelter. The Eckville Shelter turned out to be behind this house which is owned by the ATC. When I got there it was completely packed. It was so packed there were people sleeping on the floor. Most of the people that were in the Eckville Shelter were people who¢s names I had only seen in the registers because they had been ahead of me. Now I¢ve caught up to quite a few of them. Rest Step, Casey, Footslogger¢¦can¢t remember. One of them, I was really surprised, was actually Draftrunner..who had left a day before me at the Doyle Hotel and was running hard miles and I noticed in her entries at the Raush Shelter that she had done 28.8 miles out of the Doyle. So, I really didn¢t expect to see her any time soon. Sure enough she was laid up from the rain. I was hungry and there was absolutely no room in the shelter left for me. But then somebody offered that I could sleep in the privy/shower room which is out back and it¢s actually very roomy. It¢s 10x15. So I¢m sleeping on the floor here tonight. I managed to use the cell phone to order a pizza. There¢s a pizza place 15 miles from here that delivered a meat lovers pizza. I had about 3 slices of that and hopefully if they don¢t steal it from me and eat it tonight¢¦.I¢ll eat it for breakfast as well. It¢s been a long day and long miles for the time that I was out there and for the road conditions. They say that tomorrow is going to be just as bad. I¢m shooting for..trying to get to Delaware Water Gap in three days out of Port Clinton. I¢d like to be there by Monday and get myself a shower and a nice hotel. From what I understand..the next 60 miles into Delaware Gap is the same mess with all the bad rocks that you hear so much about. I¢m gonna have to do two 25 mile days or a total of 50 miles in the next two days and between the weather conditions and the famous rocks in PA that are coming up I don¢t know if that¢s gonna happen or not.