Date: 2016-06-07
From: Shippensburg Rd

To: Trail of Hope Hostel - Fayetteville PA
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: scattered clouds

Started this morning as I start most morning... Packing up Peri. Peri, that's my pack. It's short for Peripeteia, usually used as a literary term meaning a reversal of circumstances or turning point. Anyway, packed up Peri and took all of my gear downstairs. We bought some bacon and bread last night to go with the eggs available at the hostel, and Ed got crackin on breakfast. While he was working on that, I was outside talking with Junker, who runs the hostel, and he suggested slack packing. Slack packing is basically when you store your pack somewhere and hike a section of the trail using only a daypack. Sounded like a great idea to me! I made that decision, then Ed and Lyle decided to slack as well. So, after a leisurely breakfast and after transferring the essentials (ID, water, snacks, map) into a daypack borrowed from the hostel, we set out in the shuttle for the trail.Junker dropped us off at Shippensburg Rd. There in the parking lot by the trail a couple was set up doing trail magic. They had sodas and fruit and we're cooking burgers and whatnot. Figures! My first good trail magic and I had just stuffed myself with a great breakfast! Ah well, we sent many hikers their way throughout the day. From Shippensburg Rd we hiked 11.4 miles back to Route 30 where we ended our hike yesterday. It was another beautiful day.   A thunderstorm came through midday. It didn't last very long, and the rain wasn't too heavy. Passing a thru hiker in the middle of the storm I offered up my general "how's it going?" I really enjoyed his response... "Even when it hails on the Appalachian Trail it's still a beautiful day!" And he is so right! So yes, we got a bit of hail, but it was a bit smaller than pea size and was short lived. It's neat watching it bounce all over the trail though!Much of the trail went through pine groves, so the trail was a nice soft bed of pine needles for a good bit. And there were some nice long flat stretches. At least they felt flat. Maybe a slight down hill. Had a couple of steep climbs, but they were short, and had a couple of really steep descents. Really steep, especially hiking into Caledonia State Park. I was glad to be hiking packless (more or less) and to be hiking southbound. Though in it necessarily sure that I prefer downhill to uphill. I might be taking a lot of breaks and sucking wind on the uphills, but those downhills are hard on the feet and can be pretty technical with a bad knee (or two). I passed a couple of shelters, including the amazing Quarry Gap Shelter. This thing was complete with tenting platforms, a swing, multiple picnic tables, a sun dial, even hanging flower baskets! I'm sure if I had checked out the privy there would have been TP and hand sanitizer! Seriously, check out the photos I posted of it. Once in Caledonia SP I set off down the road in search of the park office to get my AT passport stamped, effectively adding a mile to my hike!! But I got my stamp, the first since Harper's Ferry. From the park it was just a half mile to where we were meeting the shuttle.As we were waiting for the shuttle a couple of hikers came out of the woods across the street and started walking down the highway. I hollered at them and turned out they were going to the hostel, so we were able to hook them up with a ride. Beats walking down the road for a mile. It's a big joke that hikers, thru hikers in particular, will walk for miles and miles in the woods but will hitch a ride across a parking lot. But man, when you hike all day another mile or two is still a big deal! Especially on hot blacktop! Especially when those miles "don't count"!Anyway, back at the hostel we all got cleaned up and Queen Diva sent me to the store to pick up butter for dinner. We had leftovers from last night, plus her awesome homemade mac and cheese! It was fabulous. After dinner we went to the ice cream shop where I conducted my live Facebook video thingy. Had about 40 people login. I was slow with the ice cream and coffee, so they left me. QD took the new hikers (Andrew and his mom whom I've taken to calling Magma because apparently she's slow moving with bursts of energy) back to the hostel. She picked up Ed and Lyle and came back for me about a half hour later and we made a trip to the ATM. And that pretty much rounds out the day. Fun story... Andrew and Magma stayed at Tumbling Run last night, the shelter that I spent two nights at. Andrew, who was hammock camping, woke up in the middle of the night to a bear sniffing his head. Apparently this thing nose bumped the back of his head a few times while poking around looking for tasty morsels! Yikes! I'm not scared of bears, but that would have shaken me up pretty good! He said it was pretty petrifying and it took him an hour to get back to sleep. Ha! I would have hightailed it into the shelter!! Geez!