Date: 2008-05-17
From: 501 Shelter PA

To: Eagles Nest Shelter PA
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: clear sky

Day 90 ¢ Saturday May 17 ¢ Eagles Nest Shelter PA ¢ Miles Today: 15.1 Total Miles: 1196.7Today's terrain was not too difficult. There were definitely sections of more rocks than normal that slowed us down, but we had only about 15 miles to go.Chris headed onto Port Clinton today, so we said our goodbyes once again. I think we have said our so-called final goodbyes to him probably 4 times already. We've jokingly told him that we're going to have to call him "The Boomerang Kid" because he just keeps on coming back. He¢s a great kid that livens up the evenings and he'll be sorely missed, though it's sort of sweet to know that we can now hop into the tent at 5:00 or 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. and not feel like we're going to get in trouble for not socializing around the bonfire. These young kids have more energy than us! We wish him good luck!After saying our goodbyes, Chris headed up the trail ahead of us. While still in hearing range, Brakeman decided to holler a couple last words of wisdom to him. The first one was "Be careful out there". Chris giggled a little bit. Grasshopper looked at Brakeman with a puzzled face and said, ¢That's such an old man comment to be telling him!¢ So immediately trying to rectify the situation, Brakeman shouted out more words of wisdom to Chris, "And remember, always¢¦ always wear protection". That got tons of giggles out of Chris. You could just see the back of him going up the trail at his 3mph pace, sticks just clicking away in the rocks and then giggles jiggling out of his body. I think he must have giggled for the next mile. I don't know where Brakeman comes up with his humor at times, but Brakeman and Chris sure did bond with their little humor going back and forth. It was a great relationship built on humor and respect. The last couple days have been all about ferns, ferns, ferns, and ferns. There are tons of them ¢ all knee high. The woods resemble a field of ferns, the size of several football fields! - They go as far as the eye can see in all directions.   Wow - a carpet of ferns. It's really quite cool. We took a lunch break at one of the road junctions, as there were boulders to sit on, a rare find in the boggy conditions of late. As we sat there, we looked at the sorry state of Grasshopper¢s lightweight socks. They are wet, dirty and now have holes in the heels, which means her shoes are now rubbing against her skin. She added some duct tape to her heels to provide a protective barrier. The bummer news is that her new lightweight socks do not arrive until our next food drop, which is 10 days away and 160+ mile. Oh well, not much we can do about that. As we finished our lunch, a car with North Carolina plates pulled into the parking lot, to get some food out of the trunk of their car.   The middle-aged man asked if we were familiar with the trails in this area. When we responded, ¢No, we¢re just thru-hikers¢, the excitement began. He hollered to his wife, who was still sitting in the passenger seat, ¢Hey wife, come out here, these guys are thru-hikers!!¢ You would have thought that we were someone famous, or perhaps part of a freak show! They started talking excitedly about our trip and then started asking if we needed anything, as they pulled various food items out of their trunk. Grasshopper did not miss a beat, before responding, ¢What I really need is a new pair of socks. Look at these ¢ they have holes in the heels and are causing rubbing issues on my skin. You can see the duck tape that I have applied to my heels. Unfortunately my new pair is not arriving for 10 more days which is 160+ miles.¢ Would you believe this sweet couple, from Asheville on their way to Boston to pick up their daughter at college, were trail runners and just so happened to have a pair of lightweight trail runner socks to give Grasshopper!!   Perfect, perfect, perfect!! It was better than scoring a dozen glazed donuts (Brakeman would disagree). Not only were they nearly brand-new socks, but they were also dry and didn¢t have holes!! Grasshopper was such a happy, happy camper. For miles up the trail, she could speak of nothing but her brand new socks. It is such the little things in life that make long distant hikers happy!We passed another large Boy Scout troop today. Half of them were headed north and the other half headed south with the plan of meeting in the middle and finding a place off trail to set up camp. That would seem like a huge challenge to us, given the size of their party! Not sure why they would not hike in smaller groups and use existing camps. Never seems like the Boy Scouts are organized. When we saw the northbound group, all of them were bushwhacking off the trail looking for a flat space to set up camp. Why not consult a map?   Why not just send one person off trail rather than the entire group? Why not use existing campsites? They were literally tearing up the vegetation. I don't know about these guys. We have yet to see a group of well-organized Boy Scouts out here.We tried to keep an even steady pace all day, but about 2 miles from camp we realized the skies were graying up and we needed to pick up the pace if we didn't want to have another wet arrival at camp. I think we've had our share of rain for a while!Unfortunately as a result of rushing, when we got to one of the junctions, we quickly read the sign and took what we thought was the proper white blaze trail but as we walked further down the trail, the blazes looked more like a baby blue than a white and the trail did not look well traveled. We were not sure we were on the right trail. We were hoping to pass somebody going south to confirm our location but unfortunately we did not. We had gone too far to go back to reread the trail junction sign. So our game plan was to estimate our time to the shelter and if we did not hit it by that time, we¢d have to go to Plan B. We picked 3:20 - 3:30 for our arrival time to the shelter. Of course, we really had no idea what Plan B would be other than turn around and head back. Yuck! Well, fortunately for us, we picked the right trail. At 3:30 we found the shelter and slightly before that we had found another milestone marker that was in our guidebook so we knew we were on the right trail. Such great news!I don't know what it is with these Pennsylvania trial maintenance crews, but their trails were very boggy and poorly marked today. Due to the wet trail conditions, we actually followed detour trails going around detour trails, as the actual trail and the original detour trails were flooded. We could have filtered water off the trails today if we wished to. As mentioned earlier, the blazes on the trees were also very confusing today. It appears that the same paintbrush was used for both white blazes and blue blazes, resulting in some baby blue blazes that confused us. Is the blaze white or is it blue? Are we on the AT or have we gotten onto a side trail. Not a good showing, Pennsylvania. Our birth state did not do us proud today.We set up camp, quite a way from the shelter, near the creek on one of the many flat-tenting spots. We have heard some people go by and perhaps up to the shelter to camp for the night. It is a Saturday so I'm sure there will be other folks around. It's 6:00 and it has been sprinkling on and off for a couple hours. Although the sprinkles have not been too much, they chased us into the tent to finish our dinner. We sat in the tent and leaned out into the vestibule to eat our dinner. We don¢t want any food spills in our tent! It's about 70 degrees in the tent and cooler outside with a cool breeze. This is supposed to be the last of the rain for a few days! YIPPEE! Brakeman is re-laying out the next few sections of the schedule. We have determined that the originally planned 20+ mile days in the Pennsylvania rocks are not what we want to do. It's 6:15 and time to say good night from 979.5 miles shy of Katahdin.