Date: 2014-05-13
From: HarperÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Ferry, WV (Teahorse Hostel)

To: Pine Knob Shelter
Miles today: 23.5
Weather: clear sky

After almost 12 straight hours of sleep, a pound of waffles, and a brief stop in historic downtown Harper¢s Ferry, Birdman and I reunited to finally start back on the AT. We walked back to the ATC headquarters and started hiking down the trail proper only to find ourselves once again in the historic district ¢ apparently we had somehow not seen the white blazes on several of the lampposts. This worked out nicely, however; for while Birdman was attempting to locate a place for ¢¦personal business¢¦I quickly toured the site of the old Harper¢s Ferry Armories. It was here that John Brown staged an attempted slave rebellion so many years ago, and a monument to him can be found on almost every street. After re-reuniting with Birdman, we walked over the Harper¢s Ferry railroad bridge and into our sixth state: Maryland. We will only be here for two days before reaching Pennsylvania, but the first section alone will leave a lasting impression. For three miles, of flat trail, we meandered alongside the Potomac River to our right, making for beautiful views and background noise. To our left was an old shipping channel, and on every log was a group of turtles warming themselves in the sun. I must have seen over a hundred turtles before leaving the riverside. Again, Birdman¢s knowledge of biology was a boon during this section, though I¢ve likely forgotten half of what he told me.After such a pleasant river walk, we were rudely awakened when we reentered the mountains. As we walked into the forest, we found that it was absolutely infested with inchworms. Crawling, gnawing on leaves, hanging over the trail on a silk line, these little devils were everywhere and impossible to avoid. Within minutes I was coated in webs and inchworms crawling all over me. We stopped to brush some off when we heard an odd sound, almost like it was raining despite the sunny weather. Then we noticed the black specks on our arms, and we came to a horrible realization: there was an actual rain of inchworm crap coating us from head to toe. We double-timed it back up to the ridgeline of the mountains, where thankfully the inchworms had not invaded. We brushed off our last collection of hitchhiker worms and crap and continued down the trail.The terrain was easy and varied today, with few major climbs and sections that passed through two state parks. The first, Gathland State Park, featured a massive memorial archway for the correspondents of the Civil War. The second, Washington Monument State Park, featured a stone, milk-bottled shaped tower in honor of the first US president. We also passed by a campground with a free shower, which we gladly used to wash off the inchworm mulch.We began to hear thunder in the distance, so we quickly hiked toward our shelter for the day, Pine Knob. On the way there, the trail passed through someone¢s backyard, over a major interstate, and through a cow pasture. No one can say that the trail planners didn¢t make this section interesting, that¢s for sure. We¢re now settled into the shelter, listening to distant thunder as the evening tires.