Date: 2003-06-14
From: PA 443

To: 501 Shelter
Miles today: 12.8
Weather: broken clouds

Trooper is kicking thru-hiker butt out here.Notes and I are laboring to stay within conversational distance, but Trooper is pulling away handily. Uphill. While chatting. By the end of today, Notes and I will have less than a thousand miles left in our AT hike - we have walked 1177.8 miles, according to Commander in Chief. We're fit, our lungs and hearts and legs are strong.Trooper thru-hiked in '97, yet he's making us sweat. We cross the ridgetop to an open, sunny rock jumble. He wants to show us something he'd seen yesterday."There they are," says Trooper, pointing with his homemade staff. Two large rattlers sprawl across the rocks, one of them right near a white blaze. One is golden, the other nearly black. (I could see me walking atop the poor, lethal things, oblivious, nose to the blazes.)We are fascinated and excited. I get as close as I dare, and snap pictures. I have no idea how far a rattler can strike. "About a third the length of their body, they say," the PA boy informs us. He says these two are both timber rattlers. They come in different color phases.We put paper signs on sticks so that others will not stumble heedless onto their lair: "Watch out - Snakes ahead on the blazes."Notes put his good camera on its self-timer then hangs it on the end of his Leki pole. He dangles this in front of the yellow snake, who is unimpressed. Should be a great shot.As we are doing this, up comes Commander-In-Chief, Itchy Foot and Just Do It. Cindy squeals with utter delight, which tickles me. She digs for her camera. Ben leans over the golden snake and comments, "Look at that big rattle." He counts the rings: "Thirteen and a button on that one! An old one!" The black snake Cindy is watching suddenly straightens out, and rattles. She moves like lightening: "Yes, I hear you Mr. Snake, I am moving along!" We laugh at her spry leaps across the rocks. The rattle sounds much more hollow than I expected, like seeds in a gourd. "Like a rainstick," says Cindy.We all reconnect at the William Penn shelter for lunch. We pour cold spring water over our hot heads, and stretch out our backs on the picnic table. Trooper leaves a note of encouragement in the register for Hotdog, who he met at the last Gathering with Ted, who took a shine to Trooper. Being a guy, Trooper writes something about Hotdog getting his "goat-smelling" self up to Katahdin and to the next Gathering, where he, Trooper, would toast his journey and achievement with a fine bottle of homemade wine.The last bit of Trail has some rocky overlooks, where the breezes cool off our sweaty, goat-smelling selves. The valleys below are neat fields, woods and barns. We find the spacious, well-lit 501 shelter, with it's prism skylight. Cindy, Itchy Foot and Just Do It are here.As Trooper's car is nearby, he agrees to run me down to a nearby convenience store where I buy a carton of Hershey's chocolate ice cream and a liter of Pepsi for the crew back at 501. They are my Trail family, and this is my chance for Trail Magic right then and now.As we walk up, there are more friends come to visit! Mary Morgan (theWelshNomad) and her husband Andrew have tracked me down and come to say hi. And not just say hello, they have unloaded a truck's worth of goodies. Talk about Trail Magic!They have a cooler and a complete resupply for an army. Out come apples, sodas, granola bars, pretzels, trail dinners, Ziplocks, crackers, tea bags, fresh carrots, Tasty Kakes, yogurt and much more. We are blown away by their generosity.Crow came in shortly, and dove into the sodas. Itchy Foot is chortlinginto his white beard, a pretzel in one hand, yogurt and an apple in another. We gorge, and stuff our foodbags like chipmunks, and still they urge more food upon us. Mary and Andrew are our heroes! King and Queen of Trail Magic. Ben tries to press money on them, but they will have none of it. Mary is planning to thru-hike next year, and Andrew will walk the first 10 days with her. So, in my crystal ball, I see serious payback in the cards.They also relay an updated weather report: showers tonight, then a cool front with NO RAIN in the forecast, sunny cool. Hurray!After Mary and Andrew pack up their remaining largesse and leave, the Five Alive come hiking in. We will have a merry group tonight. We order pizza via Ben's cellphone, just because we can. We are utter calorie pigs today. Mmmmm, food....I am journaling at the picnic table outside, slapping at mosquitos, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn, and there stands a very clean and fluffy Swift Sandal, in civilian clothes! I squeak and give his clean-smelling self a big hug with my goat-smelling self.He and his father had been hiking together the last few weeks, and had slowed down enough to let me catch. His father owns a cabin on Hyw 501, so he is taking a few days off to rest up and eat. It's great to see him, a face from my earliest days on the Trail. I finally turn into my bunk. In the gathering dark, we are inside, sleepy, drifting off in this fine, large 8-sided shelter with it's central skylight and family-style dinner table. Outside Speck (Emily) and Diesel play guitar softly and sing their praise songs to the dusk, with the thrushes fluting their goodnights in the background.The whole gestalt makes my heart swell and ache, for what I do not know.It occurs to me that the "AT experience" is perhaps not about the footpath itself, but awe one finds and the people one meets along the way. Mind you, the path itself is necessary, vital - it is the framework. But there is just something gut-grabing about the shared experience, and the tougher the experience, the better. Without the AT, we wouldn't be here together. And without us being here together - the survivors, doing our simple, routine tasks - our lives would be the poorer for it.