Date: 2007-10-12
From: Allentown Hiking Club Shelter

To: Port clinton
Miles today: 22.6
Weather: overcast clouds

mi. 22.6 sleep hosteldest. Port Clinton, Ye Old Outfitter hostel day 92 Today was an interesting day. It didn't quite end up the way it was planned, but everything came out just fine. I got up before light, around 6 ish. I looked over to the shelter and saw Torque's headlamp going. So I slowly got up and got dressed and went over there. We got the food bags and mde breakfest by headlamp light again. It doesn't bother me and thankfully so. It is not getting light out now until close to 7am. If I wait until then to get up, I won't get started until almost 9am, losing over an hour of daylight. The plan was in motion, a big day into town. We got packed up and we hiking by 8am. It's a good feeling to get moving before the other people that we camped close even got out of their tents. An interesting observation. Torque moves a little slower in getting going. This usually gives me extra time to relax in the morning, and in breaks in general. Moving wrong with this. Torque's mom please don't yell at me . Later on I was talking to him about this. I need to learn the finner points on taking longer to get ready. Really it entail, as he describes it, an unwillingness to get moving. You have to wake up and look around. Then go back to sleep. After this is repeated a few times, you need to think about getting up, or at least appear to be so. Then slowly you need to start the morning course of action. The real key is not to multi-task. Do one thing at a time and enjoy the down time while one thing is happening. Then at times you need to sit there and relax. I'll have to work on that. Those who know me, know I like the sleeping and relaxing part. But other than that I like to get a good start on the day. Anyways, we got a great start. By around 10 we had already gone 7 miles. We choose not to go to the Eckville shelter. It sounds like a really nice. It is just of the road, and someone's old garage i think. Really we didn't want any should of's to come out about not at least going there yesterday. It would have also used up over 30 minutes all said and done. An interesting observation. I saw this a few times now. It seems to me I see a lot of people taking short days or days off after rains to let their gear dry out. It is kind of the downfalls in tents. All of it usually ends up wet not to dry out without hanging for awhile. Other times it is all of their stuff and/or their clothes. Doesn't it make more sense to take that time off while it is raining and not deal with it? I know sometimes that is not a good option either with food, time tables on a section, or location. Maybe I am only justifing yesterday's zero a little more, but I do see that. I will say it was the most restful day in forever. I'll have to do that again in another bad weather day. Plus i was the nasty windy 5 degree +/- o and off rain.                              Ok, enough rants for today. About a half mile up or so from the road we pass someones campsite. Around a rock fire ring, of course was some trash, boxes, chairs, and a couple other things. There was no sign of anyone or their main personal gear. Unfortunatly there are a few more of these sites than I would like. We got about 10 feet past it, it was about 20 feet or so off the trail, then I stopped and said we should go check it out. I saw what looked to be beer boxes. Torque said nah they are probibly empty. By that time I was walking back to check it out though. When I out there I yelled back we should really stop here for a break and put my pack down. It didn't take him long to come over. What we found were 4 cases of beer, 1 untouched, 2 half full, and one empty. Luckily only the light beer was empty. It was a local brew Lionshead. If we hadn't took a zero yesterday or if it was later in the day we would have loaded up and walked back to the Eckville shelter. Or camped somewhere close. Needless to say we took a good little break here. I didn't go over board. I did have 2.5 beers. half got spilled and given to all my dead homey's. We where sitting there relaxing when pieces of the tree and akcorns kept falling. It was still really windy. What settled it was when a foot long 2 inch in diameter stick hit the chair right next to Torque. We took that as a sign it was time to move. Having an empty foodbag and light pack came in handy. Enough room for 2 beers each for later. We wanter to pass on our good fortune and trail magic to the next guy. So we took 2 pieces of card board with the lionshead beer name and logo to the trail. We put them on the ground with an arrow and sat 2 beers next to it. That should get people's attension. With this being Friday someone should find it. We figured that people we camping here since it was close to the road. It must have started storming and they bailled and took only what they could run with in one trip. The next few miles of hiking were really entertainig. Be it my low tolerance from not drinking a lot or my body's higher metabolism, but I was feeling it. Torque said he was too. Believe it or not it is really fun to hike with a little buzz. I wouldn't do it all the time or over the hard stuff. We did pass a couple day hikers. They had to picked up on it. Funny stuff. We got to the pennicale around 2. This is a rocky outcropping. It has great views of PA woods and farmland all around. We sit there to take a long lunch break. One of those shoes and socks off beer drinking breaks. Shortly after we get relaxed and unpacked we hear some people coming. A lot of people. I turn around to se a middle school group of kids coming out way. about 15 or so. Seriously, I get a great spot slated as the best farmland view in PA, and a school group comes up. I they were still a little bit away. So I lounge using my pack as a head rest facing towards to view and away from them, and recline my legs up on a rock. Torque sat up shop in a similar fashion close by. I take the approach that if I cannot see them then they are not there. So we sat there and drank and enjoyed lunch. This worked for about 25 minutes or so until the walked down and around the rocks in front of us. Both of us were hard core and without our shirts on enjoying the warmth of the sun. Really raising the class level there. One of the adult leaders talked to us a little. Of course he asked where I was from. It felt great to say a little bit of all over, but I feel at home in the mountains. We talked for a little bit and then he and moved along along with all of the kids. We enjoyed the last little bit before pressing on. It felt great to hike 14-ish by now. Not too much to say about the rest of th hiking to town. More rocks, forest roads, flat areas, and a few up and downs. We did pass another day hiker who we stopped and talked to for a minute. We said we were headed to town, still another 7 away and hopefully to Cabela's. He said that would be hard to get to and we should plan on making it there tomorrow for lunch. I just said making it won't be a problem and let it go. I won't get into again how much I love it when people like to tell me that I shouldn't shoot for something so far away or I'll never make it. I used realized this entry may come off rather negative or like I'm in a bad mood. Really I'm not. I'm writing this the night of the 13th hanging in the hammock swing in the breeze. There just seemed to be a lot of things going on today to get in a tangent about. I really enjoyed the talk I had with the weekenders and section hikers tonight. Anyways we made it to PA 61 and the road to Cabela's before 6pm. Great timing. Unfortunatly horrible hitching spot. 4 lane busy road with no shoulder. The right before a bridge with no shoulder. Meaning cars wouldn't have a place to pull over to pick you up. So thought about trying. We even went over to talk to a guy in a truck parked next to the trail. He was doing some servey work. We said he thought the cabela's was more like 3 miles away. He said there was nothing really in Port Clinton. We talked for a few minutes and I did everything but come out and ask him for a ride. We could go in either direction and he had to turn one way or the other. But no ride from him. We thought about it and decided to just walk the .7 or so on the trail into Port Clinton. It is a town of all of 400 or so people. We thought about hitching from there. Our main issue was getting back. It would be dark with makes it harder, a lot harder. I didn't want to drop $30 or so on my share of a hotel room. I also didn't want to roadwalk back or get stranded without a place to stay. So the plan was changed. We didn't have enough food to get farther. Torque was close. I only had breakfest and 1 lipton. Port Clinton has a hotel with a bar/resturant, a breakfest resturant, and a candy store. The candy store was key. I had heard about this place back in VT from some northbounders. The plan was to eat dinner and breakfest here, get enough food for snacks for a day at the candy store, and hitch into town by the 501 shelter. which is 25 trail miles away. We could either get there tomorrow after a big day and hitch in the morning, or get close and hitch in for lunch. First stop was the candy store. Remember back in CT how I mentioned I wanted some candy cigarites (I don't smoke them so why should I be able to spell it). Well thay have them. I spent almost $18 here. But I got half pound o recess choclate fudge, 2 packs o cigarites, 3 pixy sticks, 2 twix candy bars, 1 string o                                                                                                         Then it was off to the hotel for dinner. Dinner there is huge. $15 got me cold slaw, side salad, a huge plate of fries, and 4 pieces of breaded parm chicken. Really tastly. Torque was being hardcore and ordered a burger and a large order of chz fries. The bartender even asked him if he was sure. Let just say that was a mountain of fries. He put up a good fight, but in the end the fries kicked his butt. Throw in a couple pints of Yuengling on draft and it was a great meal. We waited around to leave. There is a pavillion that the town lets hikers stay at. It wa cold and dark, so we were not in a hurry. On the walk down we came to the conclusion that we should have found the place while it was light out. It was all the way down the 2nd of 2 long streets in the town. The other being the highway. It wasn't bad, good water, picnic tables, and I could even hang my hammock in there. We were looking around when I saw a flyer for a free hostel at an outfitter. It said shuttle in to town for free and rides to the grocery. We decided a warm place was in order. We called him and 20 minutes later he showed up. Good thing Torque had a cell phone. We got to the Ye Olde Outfitter just out of Port Clinton. He said he just opened up this year. He would be in the guide book next year. You got to love ending up at a place like this completly unexpectedly. Best off all he had fuel canisters. I maybe would have made it to Duncannon if I only cooked diner. Which wasn't going to happen. Right now I heat up water at least 3, sometimes 4 times a day. Got to have the coffee. It isn't a warm place. Just bunks in a side building, but good enough. Unfortunatly no heat, but I'll survive. I will say the outfitters is new and doesn't have a lot. But he knows his stuff. What he does have is top notch. He really knows his stuff too. He and his son took apart my leki poles and fixed the last section. He also cleaned out the inside and hmade the anti-shock wrok again. He also carrys a full line of traveler hammocks. Look to tomorrows entry for a review on one. We are staying here with a northbound section hiker by the name of baggins. Another great character. He is all of 80 pounds and not even 5 foot tall on an extremely heavy day. He came in with a huge pack. He said it was coming apart at the seams. He called the company and worked out a trade for a smaller pack. They were going to help here tomorrow go through and lighten her load. She had to have been pushing 50 with it, seriously. her old pack was 5000 cubic inches and over flowing. She seemed to be having a good old time though.