Date: 2018-05-16
From: Darlington Shelter, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: heavy intensity rain

I woke up this morning I realized I hadn't taken my contacts out since I fell asleep so quickly. I woke up to the sound of rain pelting my tent. I fell back to sleep, and by the time I got up, almost everyone had left. I got my food bag out of the bear box and returned to my tent to cook my breakfast in the vestibule. I made some alterations to my tent by hanging a line inside my tent from peak to help my dry clothes on in the future. I packed everything up in my backpack and pulled it out of my tent. The last thing I did was take my tent down and stuffed it into the side pocket of my backpack, and off I went. It was very nice hiking, and cooler than yesterday. Everything is covered with rain, including the trail, which created areas of mud. The hike consisted of going through forest, and open pastures with tall grass. Although the tall grass in an open field is nice, that¢s where ticks are. I¢ve taken extra precautions to protect myself from getting bit by ticks. All my clothing has been treated with permethrin, spray myself with tick spray, and I have flea and tick collars looped through the laces of my boots. As I came up on the field with very tall grass that encroached into the trail, I stopped and put on my zip off pants legs. It is one more layer of added protection. You can¢t be too careful to protect against Lyme disease. I stopped to take several pictures raindrops on plants today. They look like little rain diamonds. That is what is catching my eye today. Every day seems to be something different that gets my attention. It's mainly been flowers up to this point. I never know what kind of flowers they are but I enjoy trying to capture their essence in a photo. I ran into Giselle before I hit the grass fields. She¢s a through hiker from Washington DC, who started in Georgia. After the grassy pastures, I enter back into the forest where I came up on several trees, freshly downed by the storm yesterday. They were calling for straight-line winds which apparently came through this area, as the trees were uprooted or broken down into the trail. As I approach one tree that was down, I observed a woman climbing over the it. She Was from the local area, and doing a section hike. She is trying to string together some section hikes close to home before she starts venturing out further. Her trail name is Mother Puma. We chatted for quite a while and had a very pleasant conversation, exchanging information about hiking and then parted ways. She was going the opposite direction of me. There were several downed trees along the way, most of which had to be routed around. I stopped at a stream to get water and fashioned a protective cover with my umbrella and hiking poles. I had a nice location to sit, staying dry while exchanging dry shocks for wet ones. Roaming Embassador Dorothy showed up and also got water. We chatted for a few moments and she took off for the next shelter. I was telling her how great I was feeling, and that I would probably continue on into Duncannon. I continued on, coming into some pointed rocks, sticking up out of the trail, which I refer to now as "foot torquers". I actually have a few more descriptive words for them, but want to keep my blog rated for all ages, so for now, they are foot torquers. I got to Cove Mountain shelter, which was 1/10th of a mile away off the main trail. I checked my trail app and saw that it was 3.6 miles into Duncannon. Looking at the time, and what my normal hiking pace was, I knew I could make it into Duncannon before dark. I looked at the trail before me and it was a nice soft path of decomposing leaves. It lured me into the forest, promising good trails to come. About 3/10 of a mile in, I started encountering some rocks. They were the typical rocks that I¢ve been walking on since the beginning of the hike, interspersed along the way. I walked between rocks in some dirt, with decaying leaves. It was slowing me up a bit but I still figured I could make it to Duncannon before dark. I then encountered a very steep climb, which kept going, and going, and going and ended at Hawk Rock. I¢m sure normally it¢s a very nice view, but today there was thick fog, and no view. After passing Hawk Rock, the trail took a sharp descent into steps fashioned out of rocks. It was very steep, and I was only comfortable taking one step at a time, mostly sideways, making sure that both my feet were solid on each step. I did not want to fall down the steps, so I tediously taking one step at a time down...down...down. I then came across the mountainside completely covered with rocks. There were steps fashioned out of rocks, going through the middle of the rocks, but it was still a very difficult descent. It felt much more difficult going down this hill than any of the climbs I have encountered so far. I could feel the sides of my big toes rubbing on my shoes and getting hotspots, but I did not feel comfortable stopping at any point to try to change out my socks. I kept checking my trail app and at one point it told me I had 1.9 miles to go then it told me I had 2 miles to go then went to 1.2 and then back up to 1.9. Darkness was now settling in because I was moving so slow. I had one mile to go and had to pull out my headlamp. This particular part of the trail was hard enough when it was light out, but it was also raining, and now dark. I continue to move slowly and very carefully down the mountain until I finally reached flat ground. Knowing that there was no way I was going to make it to the shelter, I called the Red Carpet Inn. Fortunately they still had ride service available and I headed into town for a ride. The driver was Dave. His name didn¢t really seem appropriate given his heavy Indian accent, but he was great. He pulled up I asked him where he was taking me, just to confirm that he was the one who was supposed to be picking me. After I got in, he pulled up toward a convenient store and asked me if I wanted to go in and buy anything, which of course, I did. I quickly ran in and bought ice cream, potato chips, a packet of salmon, a banana, a stick of beef jerky, and something to drink. I arrived at the motel, checked in, and received two bottles of water. I got to my room and set up my boots, socks, and insoles to dry and ate all the food I purchased. The room was very simple and small, with just enough room for the bed, a small dresser and a sink in the room. The bathroom had a shower stall and toilet. I turned up the heat to ensure that my boots and socks would be dry by morning, and settled in for a good nights sleep.