Date: 2008-05-14
From: Darlington Shelter PA

To: Peters Mountain Shelter PA 
Miles today: 22.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Day 87 ¢ Wednesday May 14 ¢ Peters Mountain Shelter PA ¢ Miles Today: 22.7 Total Miles: 1146.7It was a dry night and a beautiful day, although not a clear day. The caked on mud on our boots from yesterday got cleaned off today as we walked through a huge field with above knee high wet, dewy morning grass. It thoroughly cleaned our shoes; unfortunately it also thoroughly drenched our socks. The bottom inch or two of Grasshopper's shorts were actually wet - that's how high the grass was. But it wasn't too bad. At the end of the pasture, there was a bridge over a little creek, where we stopped for our normal tick check and our breakfast break. The Pennsylvania rocks made an appearance today. We had about 6 miles of more intense rocks - the last few miles into Duncannon and the first few miles out of Duncannon were quite rocky. Duncannon was unfortunately tough on the feet as well, as we had a couple miles of sidewalk walking through town ¢ not a fun experience for the bottom of the feet. Around town we had busy, noisy highways with the choking car exhaust. It felt great to leave town and to get back into the woods and away from all the city noise and smells. Not that one could call Duncannon a city. As we walked through town, we saw the infamous Doyle Hotel, but did not go in. Later in the day, we ran into a couple of middle-aged guys who stayed there last night. They remarked that, ¢It was the first time we ever paid to stay at a 0 star motel!¢   We commented that we had seen pictures where the light fixtures were just light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, to which they said, "Yea, it hasn't changed." Our guide book states that the Doyle Hotel costs $25 a night for a single room; not sure what a double room would cost but we had decided that was one tradition that we did not need to partake of. Today's wildlife was a black snake alongside the trail and a raccoon that was a bit up the trail. The raccoon luckily ran off when it noticed that we were coming which was good news. We really don¢t need to have any encounters with a black snake or a raccoon. We got our food bag quickly hung after dinner, just as the sprinkles arrived. We were in our tent reviewing the next couple days' agenda and resupply information when a hiker approached our tent and hollered, "How did you guys beat me here?" It was Chris! We have said goodbye to Chris officially no less than 3 times and somehow he always seems to get detoured and shows up again. Brakeman upon seeing that it was Chris, inquires, ¢Do you want to come on in?¢ How funny! We¢re sitting in our 2-man tent and he¢s asking Chris if he wants to come in, like it¢s our house or something.   Oh wait, it is our home and will be for 5 months. Still funny. Without missing a beat, Chris responds, ¢No thanks, I¢ll just sit out here and talk to you in your tent¢ as he plops down on the ground. Where Brakeman comes up with these things, I¢ll never know!Chris then proceeded to update us on his last 24 hours. Last night he hiked 7 more miles to the next shelter as we called it a night, at 7:00 p.m. He said he jogged the first 5 miles in about 1 hour and then did the remaining couple miles in about an hour. So in 2 hours he had done the 7+ miles! Quite amazing. His level of energy is just totally unbelievable. However, as he went down the side trail to the shelter, he heard a bunch of thumping noises and thought, ¢Oh boy, it's a bear or perhaps a young couple having an intimate evening.¢ So he hollered out "Hello, Hello" just so he made sure he wasn't walking into an uncomfortable situation.   Turns out that it was not a bear, nor was it a young couple, nor was it an old couple. It was a porcupine! The porcupine obviously thought the shelter is his home! Chris tried to chase it out of the shelter by poking it with his hiking sticks, but to no avail. By this time Chris was not only quite frustrated but also tired. It had been a long day, it was getting late and he was ready to crash for the night. Eventually out of frustration, he took off his knit FedEx hat and threw it at the stubborn porcupine. Oops, bad move. The hat landed on the porcupine's butt and remained lodged in the quails. To make matters worse, the porcupine then ran out of the shelter and into the woods, taking Chris¢ hat with him. Chris, with his backpack still on, ran after it. It was dark. The woods were full of pricker bushes. Let¢s think about this. Chris¢ level of clearance at 6' is much different than a porcupine's level of clearance of perhaps a foot. Chris was wearing a backpack. The porcupine was wearing just a FedEx hat. Chris quickly realized that he was loosing the battle and threw off his backpack. He continued to chase the animal through the woods with the pricker bushes making minced meat out of his legs. The porcupine then decided to seek safer grounds by climbing a tree. Chris stood at the base of the tree, shook his hiking sticks at the porcupine and yelled a lot of nonprintable words. The porcupine was still wearing his hat on his butt. Chris then proceeded to jump and swat at the porcupine with his hiking sticks. Jump¢¦miss. Jump¢¦miss.   Jump¢¦ah, his hat was dislodged from the porcupine¢s butt and fell to the ground! Finally!   He grabbed his hat and headed back to the shelter collecting his backpack along the way. His hat had been recovered. However, it had tons of quills in it. He spent quite a bit of time getting all of the remaining quills out before he could call it a night! Before retiring, he recorded his evening¢s adventure in the shelter register. He thought the issue was finally over. The porcupine knew otherwise.Unfortunately since the porcupine thought the shelter was his home and that's where Chris was sleeping, it was not a quiet night. The porcupine came back half a dozen times, each time waking up Chris. Chris kept chasing him away. Eventually the porcupine left but not before making sure that Chris had little sleep before the sun came up.So needless to say, Chris did not have a lot of energy today to hike his 20+ miles. He also needed to resupply in Duncannon. The sleepy town sucked in Chris and held him for quite a few hours before releasing him. First, he had to hit several stores to find everything he needed, as the stores along the trail were very small with limited supplies. And secondly, the church not only had internet access, but was serving free food, snacks and drinks, including his favorite ¢ hot chocolate.   Although Chris had a 7-mile head start on us this morning, we must have passed him while he was doing his errands in town.I have a feeling we'll see Chris tomorrow, too. The next shelter is 17+ miles out and he's already saying that sounds like a good distance for him tomorrow. His original finish date goal of July 1, which was recently updated to July 8, sounds more like July 15 now. I keep telling Chris that if he finishes at the end of July, we'll give him a ride back to the Pennsylvania and then he can get home to Toledo from there. So who knows? We might have a passenger after all.It's 8:20 and I can't believe we're still up. We're looking over our schedule after having a delightful evening chat with Chris sitting outside our tent. It's a little over 60 degrees. The sprinkles for the evening have stopped. We never seem to have more than a day or two of totally dry weather before the rain comes, but all in all, another great day. Chris brought news that apparently there's quite a bit of rain coming this weekend. I said it's only Wednesday and he said, "I don't know what day it is", so we're not really quite sure what the forecast is other than it looks like more rain is on the way, eventually. Goodnight from Pennsylvania - the soggy, constantly wet state of Pennsylvania.