Date: 2015-05-28
From: Appalachian Trail Vonservancy - Harpers Ferry

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

We took it easy today because Crafty and I plan to start the Four State Challenge where you hike 43.3 miles from the VA - WV border to the MD - PA / Mason-Dixon Line within 24 hours. Since its been so hot, we planned to start in the evening and hike through the night so we wouldn't have to hike as much through the hottest part of the day, hopefully. At breakfast, we met Schmitty again. We also met Skunkape who thru hiked in 2012 and was taking a week to show his mom the Appalachian Trail between GA and Delaware Water Gap, PA. He is from Leesburg, FL which is not far from where I live. Schmitty and I also met the Montreal couple who just hiked 260 miles with their 9 month old baby. Andreas left us at 10 am because he had to take the Amtrak train to DC to fly back to Germany to visit his daughter for a couple weeks. We left the hotel at noon and walked a mile to the lower town. We stopped at the outfitter store to purchase some permethrin to spray on our clothes to keep away the ticks. The outfitter store let us string a clothes line in the tiny storage space behind the store where we sprayed our clothes and left them to dry. We walked across the street to the train station where we found Andreas still there. The train was now going to be 3 hours late and it was going to be very tight for him to make his flight. We got some ice cream and waited with him. The train finally came 4 hours later and it did not look like he would make his flight but we hoped for the best. Crafty and I packed up our clothes and grabbed a bite to eat at the Cannonball. We returned and waited for Potter to close up the Outfitter store. He thru hiked in 2013 and did the Four State Challenge as a section hike southbound. He had offered to take us back near the VA-WV border to start our challenge if we couldn't find a ride. In exchange, we bought him a beverage from the restaurant next door; however, on the ride we learned he had thru hiked right after high school. Oops!He dropped us off at the trail and we hiked the steep 0.6 miles back up to the border sign to take a photo and officially kick off our challenge. Since we were rehiking 2 miles of the AT, we had left our packs at the Outfitter store. We paused at Jefferson Rock and an old church for a photo. We made it back into lower town and called Potter to get our packs from the store and were back on the trail in an hour. The trail took us over a bridge where we apparently crossed the WV-MD border but missed the sign. The path went along the Potomac River on a nice flat path which you would think was nice but was actually a little harder to walk upon after going up and down. We saw a mother duck with several ducklings swimming behind her in the swamp water on the left, as well as fireflies on the trail ahead of us. My feet hurt and my pack felt heavy even though it shouldn't have because I wasn't carrying as much food ... I wondered if it was psychosomatic. After a couple miles we turned off and crossed under 340 and started climbing up to Weverton Cliffs. We took the 0.2 mile wide trail down the side of the mountain to see the view which wasn't too big but we could see some city lights and it was a 3/4 moon. We took a break and climbed the side trail back up the hill and continued on. We stumbled upon Five and Wild Thing who were camped out in the middle of the trail. We then reached Gathland State Park and took a break on a bench. It was about 12:15 am, and we had hiked 12.4 miles from the border.To Be Continued ...