Date: 2003-06-14
From: Caledonia State Park

To: Tagg Run Shelter
Miles today: 27.2
Weather: light rain

Saturday, June 14thSaturday, June 14th 27.2 miles. From Caledonia State Park to Tagg Run Shelter.I looked at my clock and it said 5:30 and I just kind of floated around in the sleeping bag there until about 6am. I had a cigarette. Got up pretty lazily and moved my stuff over to a picnic table and rolled things up so no one would get angry if they came in and saw me spread out in front of the garage and realized I slept here. I feel pretty good. I don¢t feel good about getting my feet into the wet boots and I¢m considering the possibility of sitting around and waiting for the sun to come out so they¢ll dry. I could just hang out here. There is a pool here and it¢s in the trail companion. I don¢t know if it¢s open¢¦.it says mid-June and this is mid-June but it could be tomorrow. There¢s a pool, a concession stand, some nice picnic tables, hot shower and bathrooms. It might actually be worth it to hang out here a good part of the day and take a true shower then let myself dry out and take a swim and treat myself for being so good and not having stopped last night. I¢d have lost 20 miles. I could probably afford to lose half of it now. I didn¢t get started walking until almost 9:00 because I was hoping I could convince some of the people who worked there (whenever they showed up) to let me go ahead and take a shower. The showers didn¢t open until 11:00. That didn¢t happen. So, I packed my stuff up and started walking. I passed a lot of shelters today and a lot of day hikers and section hikers and boy scouts and groups that were being force marched. They were like juvenile delinquent groups and stuff like that. Seriously big groups. I must have passed probably 5 groups of at least 20-40 people each and passed many, many other lone day hikers or in couples or in 4 or 5¢s. This has been a very busy section ever since¢¦well basically since the beginning of the Shenandoah. The last 150 miles or so I would say¢¦..starting at Harper¢s Ferry and coming north¢¦there¢s just way too many people. Too many people on the trail and the bad thing is that they have a tendency to crowd up the shelters and it¢s really not designed for them. They¢re designed for the thru hikers to be in. You end up having 40 boy scouts camped out at a shelter¢¦and some of them tent¢¦because they can¢t all fit in the shelter. It¢s a messy, terrible situation for the AT hikers because they rely on shelters. Most of them carry tents but that¢s really not where they want to be. They don¢t have time to set up tents day after day after day because they are tired when they come in and they don¢t have time to waste in the morning trying to gather the stuff up because they have mileage to go. Anyway, today was a ¢¦¢¦¢¦oops sorry there¢¦.I just got attacked by a bumblebee the size of a Volkswagen.   Smacked me right in the face. Anyway, today was a pretty easy day. It was a lot of walking. There were a few uphills. Once I got started at 9:00, I started fast and I kept going. Made some incredible time. By 4:17 I pulled into Furnace State Park, I don¢t remember the exact name of it, but it was 20 miles. We¢re talking 20 miles worth of walking in about 6 hours and 15 minutes¢¦.6 and 12 hours¢¦which is a heck of a speed. Once again this park was packed with people day hiking and all kinds of stuff. There is a hostel there which I seriously considered staying at. Fifteen bucks to get a shower and just have roof over me. Once again I overcame temptation and kept walking another 7 12 miles to the next shelter. Which is the reason why, once again, the 27.2 miles. Anyway, when I pulled into the park I went right to the little country store there and ordered a hot sausage and onion rings and I got a coke. I walked outside and immediately regretted that I had bought anything at all because somebody had left a shopping bag packed to the top with food. Fresh food. Carrots and celery and bags and bags of pretzels. Two pounds of ham. Two pounds of turkey. Two pounds of pastrami. Pita bread, bagels, bread and a whole watermelon they had left one of those as well. I pigged out there. I probably ate 2 pounds of the meat myself and some fresh watermelon, some pita bread, carrots, celery. I just sampled everything that was there. I met a couple of hikers while I was there too. Thru hikers. One, I can¢t remember the name¢¦the other one was Draftrunner. Middle-aged school teacher who had gotten on at Harper¢s Ferry and was hiking as far as she could before school started and she had to go back in. She decided as well to run off to the next shelter¢¦7 miles up. She left before me. I followed her 15 minutes later. Later on we both wish we had waited for each other because about 15 minutes after we left, the sign for the halfway point was on the trail and there was nobody there to take the picture of us standing in front of the sign. So, we each ended up taking a picture of just the sign. Anyway, I caught up to her quickly. My intention was to actually hike with her to the shelter but for some reason she flagged me off and told me to go ahead. So, I went on ahead. I ended up getting to the shelter 45 minutes ahead of her. At the shelter was a boy scout troop which..luckily they were not using the shelter, they were using their tents. In the shelter there was one section hiker that I¢d never met before. Spiderman was there¢¦the other Spiderman¢¦not the one that I usually know. There are two Spidermen on the trail and Truckin was in there as well. Basically, I just got ready for bed. Truckin told the boy scout troop a quick hiker story and I made some hot chocolate mixed with coffee and milk¢¦.drank it and listened to the story real quick and now I¢m headed to bed and yet another long day tomorrow.