Date: 2003-06-15
From: Tagg Run Shelter

To: Darlington Shelter
Miles today: 26.5
Weather: overcast clouds

It¢s Father¢s Day. I went from Tagg Run Shelter to Darlington Shelter. Total distance of 26.5 miles. Started out pretty early this morning¢¦about 7:15. Some of the other people in the shelter actually started out before me. Draftrunner got started probably a half an hour ahead of me and then right behind her went Truckin. I got up feeling a little beat up and so I was gonna cut down the miles today. Do maybe 20 miles or so. Just take it easy and then get into Duncannon tomorrow¢¦until I pulled out the map for this area and took a look at it and lo and behold there was a 17 mile flat spot right dead in the middle of the map. Flat as a pancake. That was actually quite a nice Father¢s Day present because it made the day go by pretty quick. I started hauling out about 7:15 and it was a very confusing walk. About 6 miles down from the shelter between PA route 34 and PA route 94 something happened with the white blazes. I somehow lost the trail. I was still on the trail with white blazes on it but they had been painted over brown. I didn¢t know what exactly was going on. They must have re-routed the trail. As I went along following these brown blazes (because I really didn¢t have a choice¢¦I couldn¢t find the actual trail short of continuing to go back and I wasn¢t sure which direction I came from because there were so many side trails going through this area)..I just figured if I followed the brown blazes eventually I would come out to wherever the Appalachian Trail continued originally. That is what happened but in the meantime it took a couple turns into a couple of houses that were obviously not friendly. Real dumps. One section you had to walk past a bunch of garbage and some mobile homes and some houses. Then I started getting a little worried when I came out onto a dirt road with a truck in the driveway and a big confederate flag and shotgun shells laying all over the road. So, basically, I just got out of there and eventually came out on Route 94 and true to what I expected there was the AT connection and I got back on that and started hauling it again. Never did pass Truckin mainly because he had decided to take a side turn at Route 34 to the store and found out that it was closed. It didn¢t open until 9. But I did catch up to Draftrunner and I walked with her for awhile. Ended up leaving her behind after a bit¢¦sweeping past her. Eventually, she caught up again at another section and we ended up walking into Boiling Springs together right about noontime. I was actually pacing her which made her walk a little bit faster. But we walked into Boiling Springs right around noon together. We stopped at the ATC Headquarters and dropped our packs there and I went right next door to the outfitters and ended up buying a new AT data trail book because the one I had bought back in Waynesboro was already completely trashed. It was falling apart. I bought another pair of shorts and some moleskin. Then I ran into Draftrunner when I was leaving the outfitters and we decided to go grab some pizza together. We went to a pretty nice restaurant and got an extra thick sicilian, square special. It was a house special pizza which was just humongus¢¦piled up with all kinds of crap on it. I got a pitcher of coke which was good. The coke went completely and the pizza ¢¦I ended up having 3 of the 9 slices. We each had 3 slices. Then we headed back towards the AT Headquarters and stopped at the ice cream place and I got an Oreo milkshake and she got some ice cream or whatever. We went back to the AT Headquarters and started getting backpacks and everything back on. We had spent 2 12 hours in town so by now it was 2:30. We finally just went ahead and walked back out of town again. Again, I stayed with Draftrunner for about an hour and a half or two hours. She finally decided she didn¢t want to keep the pace anymore and told me to go ahead. So I went off ahead. My feet were getting very blistered up. Something is happening with the boots. I guess they are starting to fail again¢¦these boots. These Montrail boots that I¢ve got are great to walk in as long as they¢re in good shape but eventually they start collapsing and it makes walking miserable. Toward the end of the walk¢¦and this was the long, flat section that we were walking down¢¦toward the end of the walk I hit tons of mud once again. Ankle deep mud that you couldn¢t avoid. Just freakin horrible for long stretches. Finally got within a mile and a quarter of the shelter after having stopped several times. I was trying to do something about my boots¢¦.to change socks or just to get to the point where I could walk without it being painful every step. But I made a final stop just before the shelter about a mile and a quarter at the bottom of the 700 foot ascent because there was a creek there and I went ahead and pumped out some water knowing that I was going to have to carry it up 700 feet over a quarter of a mile. I¢ve come to learn that getting into shelters¢¦if you happen to cross water close to where the shelter is you better get the water because it can be a pain to get to the shelter. Sometimes you get up there and there is no water. Either the source has run dry or you get to the shelter and you find out that the water supply is 3/10 of mile downhill on a steep path. It¢s just a pain. You end up wasting time. You get angry because you had to walk downhill after you¢ve already gotten to the shelter¢¦then walk back uphill again. All kinds of annoying things. While I was sitting there pumping water here comes Draftrunner. It was very surprising because I thought she would be an hour or more behind me. But apparently she had run a heck of a pace (which she denied) but I know she must have because I wasn¢t walking too slowly and she still caught up. At that point I asked her if she had found my shorts because I was wearing the new shorts I had bought and had hung up the old shorts on the back of my backpack and they were gone. So, somewhere along the trail I lost them. But no¢¦she had not found them. I went ahead and got my backpack on and we started walking uphill and just before the shelter I came out onto this clear overlook that was just unbelievable. You could see the entire Cumberland valley. You could see all the way across to Boiling Springs and across the entire area that we had just spent the day walking. It was a staggering sight. It was pretty amazing to think that we had walked that whole section today. So, I sat there and tried to take a picture of it and my battery died in the camera so I didn¢t get a good picture. We hiked up the rest of the way to the shelter and sure enough got to the shelter and the water supply sucked. We had to walk back further to get water and then there was just a trickle. Apparently people who hadn¢t gotten water were having a really hard time trying to get some out. Luckily, I had my water. This shelter, Darlington Shelter is just a tiny little thing. A real old shelter. I looked at it and it was beaten up. The wood is worn. I just decided to pitch my hammock. It¢s supposed to be a very dry night and I want to be able to sleep without having people yell about snoring or having to listen to other people snore like the shelter at Tagg Run last night where there were only four of us in there and we all snored. Although nobody seemed to mind and in fact that was cool that it didn¢t bother them. The kids that were in the shelter here¢¦.I didn¢t want to get them upset so I thought I¢d sleep better in the hammock. Anyway, it¢s about 10:00 at night and I¢m laying in the hammock and I¢m tired. That¢s the way it was June 15th, 2003.