Date: 2017-08-25
From: Duncannon, PA

To: Boiling Springs, PA
Miles today: 25.2

For once, it seemed the nobos had been right: Duncannon appeared to mark the southern extent of ¢Rocksylvania¢, as Pennsylvania¢s notoriously stony trail tread was derogatorily dubbed.Once I¢d descended into the Cumberland valley, the trail proved to be fast, flat and easy, putting me on course to do my biggest day yet ¢ and that¢s when I encountered the ¢Trip hazard ahead¢ sign.Seriously? After about 150 miles since Delaware Water Gap in which the rocky trail tread meant tripping was a constant hazard, why on earth did they put this sign here?The reason turned out to be bureaucratic. Some kind of cable passed across the trail and since this potential hazard was of human rather than natural origin, the risk had to be mitigated by being covered by a mat and then further nullified by this sign. In a way, it made sense. If I tripped over this, I could sue the utility company. If I tripped on one of the roughly three gazillion loose rocks elsewhere on the trail, I¢d have to sue God ¢ and he¢d proven to be notoriously difficult to serve a summons. As with most prognostications by nobos, I wasn¢t entirely sure whether to believe their reports about the trail improving, which is why I snuck out of The Doyle(t) hotel around 6.30am. I then wandered across the road to a diner to stock up on cholesterol and carbs and hiked out of town at 7.30am ¢ one of my earliest starts yet.I knew there was a solid climb up to Hawks Crag to start the day, but my hopes of making fast progress weren¢t aided when I saw a signpost pointing towards ¢Hawks Crag¢ but the white blazes went a different way, along the road. I opted to follow the blazes, which led to a parking lot from which the trail headed steeply uphill but then steeply back downhill to meet the original trail marked by the signpost. The AT presumably took its detour because of the paucity of car parking at the original site.The Awol guide also talked about the climb being ¢very rocky¢ but in comparison to the benchmark set by the rest of the AT in Rocksylvania so far, the trail was beautifully constructed and a joy to walk.Once back on the top of the long, flat, wooded ridgeline, it was back to business as usual -- which was not surprising since this was the same ridge I¢d been following for days until the gap cut by the Susquehanna River forced the trail briefly down to Duncannon. I¢d been almost identical ridges for hundreds of miles.But it was clear the topography was changing. Soon after this, the trail dropped down to about 18 miles of gloriously flat easy hiking through the Cumberland valley before heading back up into hills that were less regular and basically more like normal rolling mountains. When I dropped into Darlington shelter, just before the descent into the valley, I ran into a young sobo called Scout whose life mission was to catch up with the other Scout, whose progress he had been following through the hut registers for hundreds of miles. I told him he was only a few days behind him, but young Scout¢s pace had led to him succumbing to shin splints which seemed likely to thwart his aspirations just as he was closing in on his nominative doppelganger.The hut register was full of nobos cursing the brutality of the ascent out of the valley to the ridgeline, which I took mean that the way ahead was very very easy. And it was. The hill was beautifully switchbacked and then segued into beautiful trail through the gently rolling hills of the valley.The rest of the day was very fast, threading through paddocks and cornfields and occasionally crossing busy motorways via overpasses. Usually the cost of easy walking through agricultural areas comes in the form of contaminated water, but a spigot at a farm building run by the ATC meant I didn¢t have to worry about filtering my water. I was starting to flag a little towards the 22-mile mark, which was when I found a cheap polystyrene cooler at one of the road crossings. The cheapness of the cooler is usually directly correlated to the infrequency of it being stocked, which is why I fully expected to find it empty other than the discarded wrappers of those with better timing. But the cooler had just been restocked and offered a series of treats that were chilled with ice. Thank you, @makaylapaige. Your timing was immaculate.I had been a little worried about getting to Boiling Springs in time but walked into the town at 4.15pm. It took about a nanosecond to realise this was the polar opposite to Duncannon and this was a village as immaculate and middle class as any in Connecticut.I called Lisa, who runs a low-key hiker hostel on their 5 acre smallholding on the outskirts of town. For $20, she collected me from town, provided food to cook for dinner and breakfast, a hot shower in their home and a bed in an outbuilding. I had the place to myself, making this possibly the best bargain on the trail so far. Life is good.AT fact of the day: Once I knew I was going to get to town at a reasonable hour, I turned on my phone to check for messages, since my parents are of an age and condition where I have to be ready for bad news. They were fine but bad news came instead from another source: a friend from Abu Dhabi who¢d recently lost his job in the latest round of cuts prompted by low oil prices had had a massive heart attack at home in Britain and had died. One of the odd things about expat life is that you see people one day and then not the next, whether for relocation or, as in this case, death. It was odd to think that I¢d never be able to catch up with Tony again in the UK or some other expat posting.