Date: 2011-06-24
From: Port Clinton, PA

To: Eckville Shelter
Miles today: 14.9
Weather: scattered clouds

I slept reasonably well considering there were four of us crammed into a tiny hotel room. We woke up rather early for a town morning. Essentially we woke up when the first person started putsing aroung the room at 5:30 am. We got up and organized and checked out by 8:30 am. The stupid hotel charged me an extra $10 on my credit card for incidentals. If the room was left in decent condition they will snail mail my $10 back to me. I think this is a ploy to see if i remember about the $10 when i finish the trail. I don't think that they intend to send me the money at all. We shall see. I plan to fuss about this. I finished off my peanut butter and nutella since I had purchased some other items for lunch. Due to this impromtu breakfast I did not opt to to the local diner for breakfast. Shutter and Perigrine went down the road to eat while Leap and I went for the trail. I remembered what Bag o' Tricks told me about cliff jumping next to the next bridge. We veered off the trail and down to the river to find a brilliant 50' high protruding rock ledge. we ummed and arred about the temperature of the water in the morning and the mies we should be hiking etc. I've jumped a fair few cliffs that have been higher and more sketchy, so this wasn't something I simply must do. this is when Leap said that he had never done anything like this before and since he was taking a "leap of faith" with the trail he'd like to take a "leap of faith" off a cliff. He said that if I did it, he would do it. Hiking is what we do every day. These oppurtunities don't come up often so it would be a shame to waste it, especially since Leap was a cliff huckin' virgin. I jumped in and swam accross to the cliff. All the while, Leap was taking photos. I walked to edge for a photo op and jumped without hesitating. Leap videoed the jump on my camera, this will follow shortly. Leap didn't flinch at all he swam across, climbed up and walked straight off the ledge. good for Leap, what a legend for not second guessing himself. high five! I drug myself painstakinly up the next hill. The swim and current must have taken it out of me. We made it to the next shelter for lunch where we met a couple of southbound section hikers. I had to fill them in on how ace the cliff jump was and give them detailed directions on how to get there (since it was slightly off the trail). Leap and I pushed on, up to Pinnacle hill where the views were spectacular. There was also a massive cairn there where I climbed up and added a smallrock to the top. The afternoon stayed mostly dry with only minor drizzle that didn't necessitate the pack covers. The terrain was simple to our shelter. It turns out that this was another luxury shelter with showers, flushing toilet, tap water, padded bunks and pizza delivery again!. We were planning on pushing to he next shelter, but pizza... we got in early and just relaxed and waited for the rest of the crowd to show up before ordering any pizza. The usual suspects all filed in slowly and we placed a large order. Flowers (Buckeye) waltzed in just after we placed the order, so we quickly added his order by ringing them back up. Just made it. This shelter only sleeps six, so we were lucky to have arrived so early. It looks like Flowers is going to cowboy camp on the outside picnic table. Good luck mate! I hope the rain stays off. Another full pizza belly in rapid succesion.