Day 89: Night hiking

Hiked 29.2 miles, staying at campsite near Rausch shelter.

 

Today I was just starting to wake up around 5:15 when all of a sudden an air raid siren went off.  Like a lot of small towns they do not have a full time fire fighter crew and so the siren was to call the crew for an emergency.  I guess there was a big traffic accident on the highway that closed the road and everything.  I'm glad I was already partially awake when it went off though or I might have been really frightened awake.

 

After a great breakfast at the diner again Why Not and I headed out at the same time.  We next had our longest road walk of the trail so far.  Duncannon is about 4000 people and we walk through it lengthwise, so it takes a while to walk through it.  At the end of town we stayed on the road to cross first the Juniata, then Susquehanna rivers.  The Juniata feeds into the Susquehanna at Duncannon and the Susquehanna is a big river at this point.

 

Crossing the Juniata River

Starting across Clark's Ferry Bridge, which crosses the Susquehanna

Looking back after crossing most of the bridge (The bridge over the Juniata is on the right)

Looking downriver towards the far end of Duncannon

The AT often takes the most indirect route possible and once across the train tracks on the other side of the rivver we entered the woods and it did so again.  We had just walked north two miles.  It proceeded to go south two miles so that we ended up back where we started but across the river and a little higher up.  It then u-turned and headed north again.  So it took almost five miles before we were actually north of Duncannon. 

 

It was only eight in the morning and already it was in the eighties.  The climb back up to the ridge line was a muggy one.  At the top of the climb though I ran into some friendly faces.  There were Hotdog and Apple Butter chatting up some day hikers and I stopped to join them.  They are being slack packed today by the trail angels that they are staying with.  I hiked with them for a bit until I got to the first shelter.  I needed to stop and get more water as it was the last source for almost fourteen miles. 

 

Today was a lethargic hiking day.  The heat was oppressive, though once we got back into the shade of the woods it was a heck of a lot better.  My plan today was to get a reasonable number of miles in, sleep off the afternoon heat, then do some night hiking tonight.  Tonight is the super moon so it is going to be very bright and perfect for night hiking.  So I only wanted to get 15 miles or so in today and could take my time with it.  This allowed me to take a long lunch at Table Rock and hang out with a bunch of people including Hot Dog, Apple Butter, Ledge, Bogie, Code Walker, Why Not, Smokes and Smiley.  Table Rock had a good breeze and good view, so it was a great lunch spot.

 

Looking back across the river, we are directly across from the Doyle again



The trail had a few rocks today



Looking down on the Susquehanna, the Clarks Ferry Bridge is at the far left of the photo

I ran into Slim Jim, Army Ant and Jacko at the next shelter and then hiked on to Kinter Overlook.  The view from Table Rock was better but it was still decent.  I was sixteen miles into the day, it was two o'clock and there was a perfect campsite there.  So I pitched my tent, crawled in and slept a few hours.  Definitely an afternoon worth napping through, at six o'clock in the afternoon when I got up, I checked the weather on my phone and it was 90 degrees.

 

I ate dinner on the Kinter overlook and chatted with Beetlejuice who showed up while I was eating.  Apparently he left his pack in the bar at the Doyle and had to wait until noon when it opened to get it back, so he got a late start.  After food I headed out and started my night hike.  It was fun hiking at dusk as many people had stopped for the day and I spent the first hour just going from campsite to campsite chatting with other thru hikers.

Everyone stopped for lunch at Table Rock
(left to right: Smokes, Smiley, Bogie, Ledge, Apple Butter, Hotdog)

Kinter Overlook

The moon didn't rise until almost eleven, but for the first few hours I hiked without a headlamp as I could see well enough to stay on the trail and see rocks.  I finally turned it on around ten when I saw an animal waddling along the trail ahead of me and wanted to see what it was.  It was a porcupine!  He waddled ahead of me for almost a quarter mile before finally getting off the trail.  I tried to get a photo for you guys, but it was just too dark.

 

The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful.  Once I ruined my night vision by turning my headlamp on I left it on for the rest of the hike.  The moon when it came out was super bright and fun to look at, unfortunately the trees were dense enough that it didn't provide enough light alone to hike by.  The only nerve racking part was halfway through the night when a rattlesnake warned me of its presence next to the trail.  I could hear it and guess where it was but couldn't see it to know exactly.  I snuck by as far to the edge of the trail opposite the noise as possible.

 

The night hike was a lot of fun.  It was much cooler and the bugs disappeared.  The hard part was that I missed the signs for the couple trail crossings I came to, so I had few landmarks to figure out exactly where along the trail that I was.  I found the campsite that I intended to get to though and found that Why Not and Codewalker had made it there as well.  I made it there slightly before 1 am, but by the time I was set up, ate something and got water it was closer to 2.  A long day but very enjoyable.