Date: 2003-06-05
From: Harper's Ferry - ATC Cutoff

To: Dahlgren Back Pack Campground
Miles today: 17.9
Weather: scattered clouds

Today started out slowly, first a walk to the post office to send home gear and bounce gear to Duncannon, PA. Next back to the hotel to pack and check out (with Breakfast at the hotel. Hint: Eat somewhere else. The food is not so hot). One more short visit to the ATC then we were out of here¢¦NOT! As we walked up to the ATC, we saw Fly and Smoothie, they had just got in!! Cool, we miss them. But they are taking more time off to visit family in Baltimore, so they will have to catch up again. It was great to see them, so we stayed and talked awhile, then took some group pics by the ATC sign (Wench and I, Wench, Smoothie, Fly and I) then we took pictures of Wench and I with Ted¢s Flag, it was very cool. Of course we took another look through the thru hiker picture album, might as well , since we are there¢¦lots of familiar Faces in that book, just thinner. Seemed like we might never get out of there but we finally rolled out at about 11:45. We figured we would do between 5 and 15 miles, depending on how we felt. I was breaking in new boots, and we got a late start. We got on the trail, stopped to look at Jefferson Rock, talked to a few tourists about the AT. Then we hiked down into the historic district on the trail, looked around a bit and headed over the railroad bridge on the AT. Next stoop, a few miles on the C & O canal towpath. Boring¢¦.I¢d rather be on a bike ¢¦straight line walking, not exciting but the view was. We saw 10-12 turtles partying on the sun in the canal slime. Cool¢¦finalyy we were off the canal and back in the woods (not far behind Paparazzi). Felt good to be in the woods again. An unremarkable piece of trail, a few cliff views, but mostly just woods and mud. We stopped at the ¢Ed Garvey¢ shelter for lunch (an awesome double-decker shelter), then pushed on to see where we ended up (Wench, Paparazzi and I). We got to the Rocky Run Shelter (16.1) miles at about 7pm, but it was already full. So we looked around for tent sites. Then we thought well, if we have to camp anyway, why no do it at a free campground for back-packers? (Tent sites, hot showers, flush toilets, and water). That¢s only 1.8 miles further ahead¢¦ No problem, off we went. Note: Prior to Rocky Run Shelter was a nice historical park. There was a huge arch monument to war correspondents, civil war battlefields and campaign markers (hand to hike fast when you stop to read these). So anyway, we arrived at our campground, Set up, ate dinner, bear bagged the food and called it a night. I spent over an hour journaling the past two days activities.Note: My feet are sore, almost 18 mile in the new boots. But nothing new is sore, only the thinks that hurt when I was wearing my trail runners, my right ankle is sore. (Pulled muscle or a strain) my right foot over my arch is sore, my blisters¢¦sigh¢¦my infected toe¢¦using peroxide and a triple antibiotic with a painkiller. We¢ll see how it goes. Plan for tomorrow? None¢¦see were we end up¢¦probably, close to the MD/PA line, I¢ll keep you posted.At the campground: Mule, Paparazzi, Rev, B-Rock, Wench and Hotdog.Note: Still in pain, left knee throbs all night and sometimes during the day. Left big toe still swollen. Blisters are getting better.