Date: 2017-06-17
From: Duncannon

To: HorseShoe trail junction
Miles today: 21.0
Weather: light rain

The church hostel was really nice... the air conditioning was heavenly last night, but the concrete floor (even covered in carpet) was pretty hard and not great to sleep on. I'll have to find a nice patch of grass for tonight. The dinner 2 nights ago had been pulled pork, so for breakfast this morning we had pork hash, watermelon, and toasted leftover hamburger buns for breakfast. Two of the hikers here started on March 1st, a month before I did, which is pretty cool. I'm moving along pretty well!Walkie, Zorba, Chops, and I headed down to the AT festival. The town had closed down a street and there were a bunch of tents setup with various vendors and organizations setup, live blacksmithing demonstrations, a couple of hiking groups advertising the local trails, some conservation groups, a band (Roger Hammer Music) who played an AT song, and more. I picked up a free bandanna from one of the booths which will replace the one Slipper stole out of my cook set and tried to get some BBQ at the nearby store, but they had recently relocated to the other end of town, so I settled for a steak and cheese with tomato sauce on it, an interesting combo.At the festival I ran into Patches and Primo, who had just walked into town and I passed on the word about the church hostel. The festival's activities exhausted, we headed back to the church to hang out in the AC  and charge my phone.Taking a look at AWOL before I left, the rest of PA looks pretty terrible in terms of water availablity and campsites, but it does look super flat, so we'll have to see how rocky it is. I hit the trail at 1230 amid foggy skies. The fog meant that the humidity was super high but upside was that there was no sun, which kept the temperature a little cooler than it otherwise might've been, only in the 80s. I didn't make it far, not even out of town, before I stopped at Road Hawg BBQ for some lunch where I got TRAIL MAGIC! HighTech ('91) bought my lunch and so I hung out with him and talked about the trail... the sections he had done since, how the trail has changed since he hiked, which was cool. Finally I could delay no more, and finally started walking. I followed the trail as it crossed a long bridge over the Susquehanna River and then up the cliff on other side of river. Reaching the top, I crossed the Susquehanna trail, tanked up on water for the next dry section, and then headed out. It was magic... cresting the ridge the noise from the highways disappeared over the course of 5 steps and I was left with the gentle patter of rain. The magic was a little short lived as the sounds of humanity returned a little farther down the trail, the river and the highways running in opposite directions on each side of the ridge that I was hiking. A couple powerlines, impervious to the hill, cut straight across the landscape and the ridge continued eastward as the river curved away and headed south.The afternoon started to stretch on, the sun having returned and heating up the afternoon. Most of the trail was at least a little bit rocky at this point, small rocks embedded into the dirt and poking up at the most painful angles, which didn't help the situation. I stopped at table rock to take in the view, the adjacent ridge and valley between fully wooded and devoid of human structures.I made it to the shelter which marked the 10mi mark for the day and decided that I had a few more miles in me. This was the last shelter for 18mi, so passing it meant that I was definitely stealth camping tonight. Down off the ridge, across a road, and back up the next ridge.I ran into a spring that I had been hoping would be my water for the night, but while the water was clear the stream bed was florescent orange. I decided that that wasn't the right color for a stream, and though it was probably just iron in the water or something, I didn't trust it and grudgingly moved on. Coming up to the top of the ridge I heard the distant report of gunfire, high caliber stuff emitting deep thuds as they fired. The amount of gunfire was a bit unsettling, it would be go for minutes and then pause for about 10min and repeat. With that quantity it seemed like it had to be a military base or something doing training, but I was in state game lands and so I didn't know if it might've also been just a bunch of rednecks having way too much fun (with waaay heavier weapons than they should've had), which was a scarier concept.I passed a nice campsite, complete with a bed of pine needles and stone chairs around a fire pit built inbetween the pilings leftover from an old firetower. Without water I couldn't camp, so I had to push on as the sun dropped towards the horizon and dusk set it. I came to a spring that AWOL said should be reliable and flowing, but it wasn't, the first time I had had that happen. There were a couple of puddles left, and the next spring was another 5mi away with would turn into a night hike, so I said screw it and filled up.This was really the first time I've ever been uncomfortable on the AT. The gunfire was so loud directly ahead that any farther and it sounded like I'd be in the middle of a shooting range. Had I had cell service and could've ascertained if the source of the fire was legit, I would've been alot more comfortable, but alas, I was cutoff from the internet and AWOL was mute on anything in this area. I searched my AT bucket list (and life bucket list) and couldn't find wandering through gunfire in the dark anywhere on it, so I did something I've yet to do... I walked south.Back to the campsite! I got there just after the sun set and had a couple minutes of light to setup my tent and start dinner. I decided that today was a triple ramen kinda night and ate as night fell, heading to bed my bed of pine needles shortly after.Long day today, but still did a full day's miles despite having left town after noon, which I'm pretty happy about. While in town I had posted on Facebook about hitting the halfway point on the trail and got a number of comments back, including an offer for a place to stay once I get up to NH, which is pretty cool.