Date: 2007-07-09
From: Quarry Gap Shelter

To: Pine Grove Furnace Park
Miles today: 17.3
Weather: clear sky

Halfway point achieved today! Fanfare and celebrations! Oops, never mind, Pennsylvania is in the midst of a great crisis. It is customary to celebrate the halfway point by attempting the half gallon challenge, in which the thru hiker eats 1/2 gallon of ice cream at a single sitting. Unfortunately, the facility where this takes place is a government facility- the camp store at a state park. Right now Pennsylvania politicians, in a frenzy of partisan politics, will not approve a budget so the governor shut down all non essential services. Apparently this ice cream challenge is considered non essential. Everyone in the group I was traveling with today was surprisingly demoralized by the inability to participate in this event. I wanted to rename Pennsylvania the Keystone Cop State. Some of my attitude might also have been driven by the incredible heat.Today was unusual in that I hiked in the morning as part of a large group. Very different dynamic - took frequent breaks with them, including a shelter with a message for Tuna Bag from Cobweb and Mayo, where they pretended to be him describing himself. Most amusing was the reference to his 2168 mile section hike after he allegedly skipped 6 miles near Catawba, NC. As the morning went on, I found their breaks to be too long and frequent, so I shortened mine or skipped past them when they stopped. I ended up taking an afternoon nap to beat the heat and they all caught up. Also, in the afternoon, I was hiking with Veg, a vegetarian white hiker with dredlocks. We had an interesting conversation about his career as a wildfire firefighter, and his property in California that he hopes will result in a fairly independent lifestyle for him. Another goal is to create high speed train systems on the east and west coasts to reduce the demand for fuel guzzling airplanes. The hiking crowd included Tuna Bag, G, Grizzle, Keymaster, Melk, Ronin, Young Eagle, Persistent, and Candybar. Candybar was at the shelter in the morning. I seem to stumble onto her occasionally ever since early in the trip. A very fast hiker, she must take breaks more than I do. She was off for 10 days recently to go home. She should work her way ahead shortly. Of course, all the 20-somethings do this now. They all hike faster per hour than I do. Some hike fewer hours per day, so with them I manage to keep up. The ones who hike the same or more hours seem to get sucked into towns, so as a result I catch up to them in towns. Either way, we all are having fun and somehow repeatedly run into each other.Saw my first rattlesnake today. Actually, Grizzle found it, but we all caught up to him and got to look. Someone actually provoked the snake and it coiled but never struck. Made me wonder what it takes to force a snake to actually bite you. I also noticed that the sound of the rattle, which I'd never heard before, was just like the cicada I heard while hiking over some rocks yesterday. Hmmmmmmmm......We got to Pine Furnace Park, and I decided to go on to a site off of state property to avoid any hassles if rangers decided that since the park was closed it was off limits for camping. In what I later realized was a poor decision, I chose a very flat area near Swamp Trail. Can you say "mosquitoes"?