Date: 2003-07-22
From: eagles nest shelter

To: Port Clinton pavillion
Miles today: 8.6
Weather: heavy intensity rain

I was surprised to wake up this morning. Last night was the craziest lightning i have witnessed on the whole trail. Storms came through all night. Last night when I had gotten to this shelter the water source was barely even a trickle hardly even enough to get any water from. This morning that same spring was gushing so fast out of the pipe the stream bed could hardly contain it. No need to purify this water, it hadn't been on the ground long enough to become contaminated. Bucky and I headed out at a reasonable time to see if we could find Beach alive as well as head in to town and get our business taken care of so we could get back out of town and stay on target for Delaware Water Gap. We reached the spring where Beach said he would camp and we found no body. We hurried onward eager to get some town food. Port Clinton was another small Pennsylvania town that the trail passes through by sidewalk. We ate at the Port Clinton Hotel and Bar where we found several of our kind. The people of Pennsylvania sure love french fries. For the second seedy little town in a row we were served an absurd amount of fries. Some thru-hikers were even unable to finish them. We still found no sign of Beach as we went to our business at the post office and the outfitter which had to serve as Bucky's food resupply since there wasn't even a convenience store within ten miles. As we sat outside the outfitter packing our stuff some trashy looking local redneck in some ugly brown car pulls up and explaines that "I wouldn't be leaving if I was you theres tornados coming and bad thunderstorms". I wasn't looking for an excuse to stay in town. We headed back to the hotel/bar to watch the weather channel which said there were storms in the area. We discussed the possibilities over a beer with many other hikers all of whom were staying. If we were to stay in town and still make Delaware Water Gap that would mean we would have to cover 76.5 miles in three days, thats an average of 25.5 miles. All the other hikers predicted we would never make it. The only option was to leave and cover ten more miles or so to make it doable. The only problem was that it was getting to be about four and thunderheads were coming in. we said good bye and headed out only to make it to the edge of town and start doing some math. It would be after dark to get where we wanted to get and we could hear a storm was very close. If we turned around now we were committing to the 25 mile days. We made it back inside just as the first drops fell. We were met of course with laughter and jeers once back at the bar but at least we were dry. The storm was a quick one that was over in about 20 minutes at which point Bucky and I began to debate leaving again if only to get a few miles out of town to cut into the upcoming days. we decided that it was best to leave and said our good byes, once again donning our packs and heading out and around the corner. we could hear the storm fading in the distance as the skies brightened up. Then we heard another sound, the sound of thunder rolling in once again from the east. This time the laughter became roars when we walked back into the bar. We could never make it out of Port Clinton.