Date: 2017-08-29
From: Raven Rock shelter

To: Rocky Run shelter
Miles today: 20.6
Weather: moderate rain

"I have never seen a mass of such filthy, strong-smelling men. Three in a room would make it unbearable. The filth that pervades them is most remarkable... They have become so inured to hardships that they care but little for any of the comforts of civilisation. They are the toughest set of creatures I ever saw, their features, hair and clothing matted with dirt and filth, and the scratching they kept up have warrant of vermin in abundance..."Thru-hikers, right? But this is a quote from an anonymous citizen of Maryland about the Confederate soldiers who crossed into their state early in the US civil war.The parallels with the modern-day hordes of thru hikers plying the Appalachian Trail 155 years later was an obvious one, and the people who'd featured this quote on a roadside interpretive display seemed fully aware of it. The mural was headlined: "19th century backpacker."There are many reasons why I was glad not to be doing the four-state challenge but one was because I would have missed the chance to take in the details of the Civil War battlefields that were literally under our feet.I hadn't known much about the conflict beyond the broad strokes of what happened, so the details of this battle, and how it fitted into the overall trajectory of the civil war, made it seem rather more real and less like something from a dusty history textbook.It also added an extra level of interest to another day in the long green tunnel on ¢ you guessed it ¢ long flat forested ridgelines that rarely offered views. The forecast was for rain from 11am or so, and in the hope of getting as much of today¢s hike in before that meant I was up before dawn and hoisted my pack onto my shoulders around 7.30am. And immediately felt the first spots of rain. ¢Seriously?¢ I asked the clouds, but they didn¢t reply. The rain was just nuisance drizzle rather than anything serious and I didn¢t bother putting on my rain jacket for the few miles to the next hut, where the residents ¢ an eclectic collection of section hikers -- had opted for a leisurely start to the day. One was another former Peace Corps volunteer aged in her late thirties who seemed a little uncomfortable in her own skin and was aiming to hike for a few weeks into the southern Shenandoahs, not least of which as a means of putting off making a decision about what to do with her life. In the half hour I was there chatting, Juicy Fruit and Suches walked past without stopping and the rain got heavier, prompting me to don my rain jacket before continuing. At least the trail was notably kinder than it had been in northern Pennsylvania and instead of going on the slow and rocky absolute crest of the ridgeline, it tended to follow old logging roads just to one side, which made for much faster and more pleasant progress.Another session in the rain took me to Pine Knob Shelter, where there were yet more people sheltering from the rain and seemingly in no hurry to get out into it. Two separate solo section hikers were particularly memorable. One was a middle-aged guy called Skittles who would park his car then do hikes along the AT from it. He was the epitome of the low-skills hiker who'd seemingly bought into the uber-macho image of backpacking: he had an enormous pack and was carrying a hatchet and also a huge knife, on the scabbard of which was another smaller knife. Possibly as a manifestation of this macho expectation, he¢d got a fire going, for which I was certainly grateful.The other was Plus One, a middle-aged woman hiking with her dog and who was applying a thick layer of mascara as I approached the shelter. Seriously? She had an enormous pack and was also carrying a conventional handbag, which contained things like full bottles of shampoo. She was even louder and brasher than her makeup choices would have predicted. The other pair were a father and daughter out for a few days and whose rolled eyes whenever Plus One¢s volume or brashness reached peak levels expressed their desire to get out of here. I concurred and fortunately the rain ended, leaving a drearily overcast but otherwise dry day.Just after crossing an interstate highway via a full-enclosed overbridge is when I started to reach areas rich in Civil War history. This began with the original Washington Monument, erected by the townsfolk in honour of George Washington and which was now one of four towers to claim that title. This one was considerably smaller than the more famous one in Washington DC but this one had a staircase going to the top for the view, although the benefits were pretty marginal on this grey day.At the parking lot directly below was an interpretive centre to the battles that had occurred here on September 14, 1862, which I went into primarily to dry out a little but which then helped me make sense of the battle sites I was about to walk through in the next couple of hours. In short, the Confederate forces were hoping for a quick victory that would bring a swift end to the Civil War but Union forces won the day, albeit in a way that didn't vanquish the rebel side either, with the result that the conflict waged on for another three years or so.At each of the two main sites, near South Mountain, it was odd to think about the literal blood under my feet in what was now seemed to be idyllic pastoral scenes. I hiked on another couple of miles to the next shelter, which was another luxurious double-storey affair like last night¢s one. Besides a section hiking couple who marvelled at my ability to hike in trail runners, there was an enormous group of university students from some expensive private Catholic college who were on an orientation hike before starting the academic year.It would have been really easy for the youthful enthusiasm to combine with the size of the group to dominate the shelter, but these guys ¢ or at least the group leaders -- were particularly self-aware and at pains to prevent that happening. It was heartening to see. They also tried and failed to get a fire going, so I offered some of my denatured alcohol to get it started. After all, by this time tomorrow I was going to be in Harpers Ferry, where I could restock.Life is good.AT fact of the day: Just to one side of one of the battlefields was a short trail leading to a shrine for a Confederate leader who died that day. This was bedecked Confederate flags, which was even more poignant given it had only been a few months since the flag was among those flown by neo Nazis who rallied in Charlottesville to prevent the removal of contentious statues of Confederate fighters just a few months earlier.