Date: 2007-10-18
From: Duncannon at the Doyle

To: Duncannon-Trail Angel Mary's
Miles today: 25.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Mi. 25.7Sleep house/floorDest. Duncannon, Trail Angel Mary'sJust a bit of warning, this is going to get long. I want to describe a long day in detail since I have the chance to type at a PC.We decided last night to save money and sleep at Mary's apartment tomorrow and probably the next night. She is a wonderful person that takes in hikers and even feeds us. She is probably the 4th person I met that I would give this status. The only others were Rob in Dalton and the Mayor and Butch in Unionville. Great people. She works a lot and had the morning off. She said that she wanted to sleep in a little. Can't argue with that I wanted to too. She said to be at her apartment at 9am. We got up around 7 and slowly packed up and headed over. We ended up being the alarm clocks for her and Two step who laid claim to her couch. I made some coffee and Torque and I made egg sandwiches for breakfest. She was feeding us already. Got to love it. The four of us then headed out to Boiling Springs. Two Step had a mail drop there to pick up. Mary's car is fantastic. It is a huge old boat. Mountain Mike on his way north painted the roof white and a huge AT symbol. Everyone who rides in her care signs the roof with a paint marker. The talk on the drive up was of the half gallon challenge. We are thinking about upping the anty. Maybe pez on top and some frosting. I am eyeing cookies and cream and Torque is going for the gold of Moose Tracks. I'll save the details on this for Sunday or when ever we do it. Our starting point north, I hate going that way, was the PATC office. I picked up my packages and left them in Mary's trunk. I met a section hiker there, Gator, who had been just in front of me for a few days. We should catch her again at some point. I decided to weigh my pack. I only had 2.5 liters of water, about 3 pounds of food, head lamp, steri-pen, camera, long sleve shirt, and raincoat the rest was at Mary's Apartment. It said 15, but was probably closer to 10, the age of the scale was a little suspect. Well at the early hour of 11:20am we headed north back to town. I think I came to a realization today. This is only my second slack pack so statistically I don't know if 2 data points is enough, but the engineer in me says ok. Each slack pack seems to start later and get farther away. My last one started at 10:30am for 20 miles this was 11:20 for 26 miles. I hate to see what it is going to be next. It is going to be all of dark:30 when we get back. We did have one thing working in our favor. The first 10 or so miles were really chill. Walking through fields were pretty chill. We took off down the road and what do I find, my very first buckeye tree with buckeyes laying on the ground. Well yeah, of course I picked one up and carried it with me today. What can I say, there is no such thing as worthless gear as long as you use it or like it. We only stopped for one short snack and poo break in the morning, or at least the first part. We didn't run, but our pace was over 3 mph. It doesn't seem like a lot, until you sustain that on a trail. Luckily for us just after 10 miles the trail goes past an old farm. It is now used by the PATC. What that means for me is a good water supply. This turned out to be our longest break of the day. Something around 30 minutes. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. Just enough time to take the shoes off and lay down, then drink and eat up. We left this break right around 3pm. We were still averaging over 2.5 mph. I hate to turn this entry into talking all about miles, but lets face it. Including the walk to a shelter and from the hotel to the apartment tomorrow I'm sure I added the extra .5 needed for a 26.2 mile marathon. My biggest day to date. Right before the bumps and ridge walk we had the trail went right through a couple recentally mowed fields. The tons, I think that what they call them, of hay or straw were stacked up. I am always getting them confused. One is for making poo and the other is for catching it. They were stacked up 3 high, 3 wide, and probably 15 or so long. There where 4 or 5 of these. It is probably a good thing that we were doing a big day and had to make it back to town. I could see myself climbing them and most likely hurting myself at some point. They were 20 feet or so high. I think I came up with another fun thing to do at some point. I was trying to get Torque to do it for money and he wouldn't. I over the course of the night I convinced myself to do it. But the trail goes right by lots of pastures with cows in them. Not just any cows, but cows with milk. The bet stood at $16 and he wouldn't do it. But at some point I or probably him, are going to drink some fresh milk. The details are still being worked out. It is going to involve laying under the cow and milking it into your mouth. You mouth doesn't need to touch the teet, that will just be bonus points. We were eyeing a couple cows. A couple issues we will have to overcome came up. First most are behind electric fences. I think we can get around this, the trail goes right through some of the fields with the cows. The second is the poo. We are going to have to find a clean place underneath of one. The third and most important one is cow selection. The ones by themselves looked pissed off. So I think we are going to have to go for ones in a small group. I think I might learn what a stampede is. Right about the 12 or 13 mile point we started the incline up the first bump. Only around a 1000 foot gain over a couple miles. There were also lots of switchbacks. Right about this point it started to sprinkle. The weather was a 40% chance of rain today. Well the streak continues. Every time there was a chance of rain, I saw it. It sprinkled for around 20 minutes. We were waiting for the downpour to start. Nothing like hiking that long in the rain. We got over the first bump ok and the short second one. Almost to the top of the third one I was feeling it. This was about the 18 or 19 mile point. I think that if I would have gotten an early start and could have taken more breaks, this wouldn't have been an issue. One thing I haven't been in awhile is out of breath, but I was huffing at the top of this one. I had to bring back the short breaks. Just a minute or two to let my body catch up to what I was doing. It really ended up working out. Right at sunset we ended up at an overlook. We took a few minutes and enjoyed the view. It has been forever since I have been in a good spot for it or a sunrise. I will have to fix that. It has been foggy and socked in for the sunrises, so they may be farther off. We made it to about 4 miles to go and right around 7pm until the headlamps had to come out. It was rocky for the last little bit, and we were starting to trip. This is also my first night hiking of the trip. I made it almost halfway first, but I finally had to give in. It wasn't that bad. On this terain it really slows you down. I think it has it's place. I may start doing more of it. Given the coming time change and shorter nights, I am going to have to in order to make it anywhere. On rant on the day. Coming down to town the trail came to an abandoned roadbed parts of which were even paved. Then it goes back up the hill for half a mile on the side of the slope, and then back down. That makes no sense. I am the first to say I am not out here to hike on roads, but only when it makes sense. Going up then down did nothing but slow us down. Anyways, we got to town right around 8:30pm. Not bad at all. I think the average mph for the day with breaks was over 2.5. That got me thinking there is not a big chance of me doing the 4 state challenge. It is from the last shelter south in PA, through Maryland and WV, then ends at the first shelter north in VA. About 56 miles total. Everyone starts out at midnight and tries to make it in 24 hours. We would have to keep that same pace for 24 hours. Not really for me. I may open it up and see what I can do. A lot of people zero for a day or two after and at least take a short day before. Time wise that puts you the same or behind. We walked right by the Doyle again. We couldn't pass up another stop. So we got a could 2 quarts of Yuengling to enjoy and toast our day to. We got to Mary's just before 9pm. Two Step and her were still making dinner. I got another shower in, with tasty beverage. Dinner was great. Salad, which I told Torque I had been craving earlier, and a taco casserole that was great. After that we tried with no success to finally get drunk in Duncannon. This has to be a new record. 2 sober nights in this town. We had a couple drinks and watched the Red Sox's win. I hope Cleveland pulls it out. I got to support the Ohio teams. It's great watching the big money teams loose. Torque and I had been talking and I think I came up with a couple guide lines for hiking. Rules is too strong of a word, they are a loose set of guide lines.1. I will either hike or pack up in the morning in the dark or the rain, but not both. Rainy days are always shorter anyways.2. Torque's rule of 12. The number of beers in the pack and miles hiked cannot exceed 12. It is containers though, a tall boy counts as 1.3. If the trail crosses a forest road or service road 3 times in 5 miles, I stop and look at the map and see how many more times it crosses. If it does, I take the service road. This happens a lot more than you would think. This falls more under pointless trail routing. Off to bed. A very restful zero tomorrow.