Hiked 11.5 miles, staying at an unnamed campsite.
Today Why Not and I slept in. There was no point getting out of our tents early as we were waiting for Dip'n'sip and Srocket and they wouldn't be here before 10 at the very earliest. So we packed up lethargically and walked back to the general store area. We sat on the porch of the Ironmaster's mansion for a while. I also got a very important package from the hotel manager, my new shoes! I had ordered them in Harper's Ferry and had them shipped here. Unfortunately it turns out I ordered the wrong size...
So ensued my morning of running around dealing with shoe shopping and return. This was made difficult by the fact that I had no cell service and could not easily call upcoming outfitters. It was a royal pain and nothing was really accomplished except for managing to contact the company and deal with the return of the purchased shoes. Well my shoes have made it 1100 miles they can do another 50 right?
Finally Srocket, Dip'n'sip, Beetlejuice, Coderunner (we hadn't previously meet), Blimey and Elf showed up and the ice cream eating began. It turns out that the large ice cream containers are only 1.5 quarts nowadays, so you have to supplement with a pint to attain a full half gallon. I chose cookies'n'cream for my large container and mint chip for my pint. I managed to eat both in 27 minutes. Yeah, eating a half gallon of ice cream is ridiculous, but when am I ever going to have the metabolism to burn it all off ever again? Also, you can't mess with tradition. Also, Lost let down the entire German nation by not being able to finish his ice cream, nice job buddy!
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| Starting the challenge |
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| Everyone looks so happy at the start |
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| I'm not sure if Blimey is mad that I finished first or just concentrating really hard |
After eating nobody wanted to move much for a while, especially not hike with a hip belt squeezing your gut, so a lot of us spent some time checking out the museum. The park contains the AT museum and in it are artifacts from famous hikers and the trail. It even has one of the original shelters set up and some old Katahdin and Springer signs. It was pretty neat to see. They also have scanned copies of all ATC pictures going back at least 40 years. Ours obviously weren't there yet but it might be cool to come check it out in later years if I'm in the area.
While letting things settle more people trickled in. We got to see Field Stripper again which was cool, it has been a while. Also walking in were Oatmeal, Thunderfoot, Rooster, Tags, Jetlag and Mother Teresa. After letting things settle and watching the others descend into fat American debauchery with their ice cream, I decided I really needed to get a few miles in and headed out.
The first mile of the trail today was paved as it wandered through the park. We even passed a sandy beach on the lake that filled into the old Iron mine. The trail then turned to gravel, then back to rocks and roots. Again there were no views and easy terrain so we could just cruise. I had so much sugar today that my body skipped the sugar high and went straight to the crash, so I was moving pretty sleepily in the beginning until my body digested a bit more. The 2600 calories certainly helped me power through the afternoon though.
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| Walking through Pine Grove Furnace State Park |
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| Walking through Pine Grove Furnace State Park |
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| Looking back at the beach |
Lost stopped at the first shelter along with Coderunner. Dip'n'sip and Srocket are also tentatively headed there. Why Not and I wanted to get a few more miles in so we could feel productive so we walked on another four miles to a campsite near a stream. I got decent reception here so I spent the next hour trying to figure out my shoe situation. I finally got those ordered, so now my shoes have to hold together till Port Clinton.
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| Trail photo |
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| Walking through a meadow |
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| Wildflowers in the meadow |
Field Stripper showed up and camped with us tonight. It was great catching up with him and what he has been up to for the last month or so. I got behind in my journal the last day or two so I spent a while tonight catching up on all that. You are welcome.
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