Date: 2004-12-12
From: Rausch Gap Shelter, Pa.

To: Peter's Mountain Shelter, Pa.
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: overcast clouds

17.5 miles todayPeter's Mountain Shelter, Pa. I woke up at 5am and knew I was done sleeping. Hippie heard me putting my coffee on, so she got up and put on her tea. I felt bad because it was so early, but Brian heard Hippie and me talking (quietly) and laughed at something we said. It turned out that he's a morning person too, so he got up and ate his breakfast. We all sat around talking and the next thing I knew, it was already almost 9am. Brian was packed and left about 15 minutes before Hippie and me. He was walking south on the trail heading back to his car at a road crossing, but was going to take a side trail to see if there was less mud. He had walked in yesterday from his car and said the trail was a muddy mess. Hippie and I caught up to him in about a half an hour (he was carrying way too much weight on his back) and he fell in walking between us for a few minutes talking somemore. He came up to the side trail that he wanted to check out and we said said goodbye to him. He was carrying a 15 year old map, so I hope he did ok. Hippie has our map photographed on her digital camera, so I just have to walk and follow her. We had snow flurries all morning long. This section of the trail was in pretty bad shape. I could look to either side of the trail and not see much water, but in the trail the water was flowing like a stream. It made it very muddy in parts. Hippie and I sat down when we came to an old campsite and ate lunch. We were still having snow flurries and the wind was not blowing hard, but it was still enough to make you cold when you weren't moving. We hiked on and climbed Stony Mountain. It was easy to see how this mountain got it's name. It was nothing but exposed rocks the whole way. I remembered it as a good place to see rattlesnakes in the summer, but it was way too cold for any to be out today. We walked down the mountain in an area that had been washed out pretty good, so we were constantly stepping on moving rocks. We crossed a few small streams near the bottom and then walked along the side of a larger stream before we came out to the trailhead at Rt 325. We walked into the woods on the south side and sat down for about a 20 minute break. The flurries had stopped and we were out of the wind, so it felt nice out. I could hear someone working on rocks farther down the trail and when Hippie and I continued south, we ran into two trail maintainers setting big slabs of rocks to get through a wet area. They said that the area we had just come through wasn't being maintained because the local club had dissolved. Their club was going to take it over soon. Thanks guys for all the work your club does on the trail. They said they hadn't seen any thru hikers in a while...that doesn't surprise me. Uncle Kodak is the only one that's very close that I know of and he's still 5 days ahead. We climbed up to the Shikellimy Rocks. It was longer than it used to be because they have put in switchbacks where trail used to go straight up the mountain. They've done a nice job on that section of trail. There was only one wet area and the maintainers said that was on their list to be fixed. We got to Peter's Mountain Shelter about half an hour before dark and needed water. That's a fun area to need water because you have to go straight down a steep section of the mountain for about a quarter mile. It's so steep that it's like walking down about 800 steps and then when you get your water out of a very nice spring, you have to carry it back up about 800 steps. That's like walking up an 80 story building carrying enough water for two people for a day. The snow started falling a little heavier when we were getting water. By the time we got back to the shelter, it was snowing nicely, but it wasn't sticking. We made another good meal. We used up the spagetti sauce from yesterday that I carried all day and had angel hair pasta and steamed a bag of frozen broccoli and cauliflower. Hippie made some hot chocolate with marshmellows in it. We sat inside the shelter and ate while we watched it snowing. I was tired after dinner and went to sleep early.Another great day on the A.T.