Date: 2003-06-05
From: Alec Kennedy Shelter

To: Darlington Shelter
Miles today: 18.2
Weather: scattered clouds

Woke this morning before everyone else. A section hiker had come in during the night, in the middle of a nasty thunderstorm. I played fetch with his dog on the way back from the privy. Good traildogs make me want a dog so bad.Crawled back into my sleeping bag, this morning because it just felt good. For the first time in a week, not because it was cold and miserable outside.On the way into Boiling Springs, I came across a big group of eight- and nine-year-olds on a field trip. It was funny. As I approached, I heard them say "here comes another hiker--" I felt like wildlife. "And it's a girl!" Bean, Lucky, Cosmo and Tapeworm were ahead. They asked me questions and took pictures; I felt important.Got into Boiling Springs and sat around. Checked out the Victoria Secret catalogue that Tapeworm got in his maildrop. I must admit that I miss my clothes. Ate pasta and white pizza with Lucky and Cosmo. Bought candy bars enough to get me through the next day to Duncannon.Sat on the lawn with Orb, Kitty and Goldberry while Bean played frisbee with Tapeworm. Hiked out in the afternoon with Lucky, and you'd think that the conversation and company would make the miles go fast, but no.The terrain was completely flat. Through farmland and backyards for fourteen miles. Coming into Boiling Springs, you could see it: we came down off a slope, and the valley extended on wide until it rose again on the other side. We knew in the morning that that was where we were going tonight.So we did. For four or five miles we bordered Conodoguinet Creek. It was miles of mud and sludge puddles, until the elevation rose and we climbed the last mile before the shelter. Two-tenthsof a mile shy of the shelter, I stopped for a view. Cosmo caught up with us there, and someone had the brilliant idea to swap packs. This would be fine and good if Cosmo was not part of "Team Go Heavy," and had he not just filled his packwith six days of food in Boiling Springs. Team Go Heavy will carry pretty much anything, as long as they use it once between here and Katahdin. So: frisbee, Uno cards, and extremely heavy tent ("the pleasure dome"), all their winter clothes, etc. They packed out a bundle of firewood from Pine Grove Furnace , since there would be no dry wood around. It took both Cosmo and Lucky to hoist the thing onto my back, and when they did, I felt myself slowly tip backwards. I think it weighed around sixty pounds, approximately double my pack's weight. Needless to s! ay, it was a hellish .2 miles, but worth the picture we took at the end.At the shelter, we caught up to Bearly and Hotfoot, who had stories to tell. They'd hiked the same miles as us, earlier in the day. When they passed by the creek, the AT was completely under water. They had taken their boots off and waded up to their thighs in muck. The boards layed across particularly muddy sections of the trail were floating.We can only guess that something was dammed, and had broken sometime in the afternoon, causing the water level to drop nearly three feet.I slept extremely poorly, due to a sectioner who thought the weather would change (this cold can't last forever, right?) He only came with a fleece liner, and so was sleeping with an emergency blanket, which rustled so loudly every time he changed position. His trailname was Stormy, but we joked that we should call him Crinkle.