Day 92: New shoes!

Hiked 14.8 miles, tenting at Eckville shelter.

 

Today was an exciting day in the life of a thru hiker.  I have brand new shoes to wear!  They are almost exactly the same as my old ones, just a newer model so comparison is easy.  I feel like I am wearing platform shoes, there is just that much tread missing and the sole is just that compacted on my old ones.  I took some photos of my old shoes as I am sure you all are curious what 1200 miles looks like.  It is sad to get rid of the old ones though, they've seen me through a lot.

 

My new kicks!

The difference 1200 miles will make on the tread

My old shoes show a little wear



Ok, maybe more than a little

 

I'm not sure this shoe sole was doing much for me anymore

 

The new shoes had me worried that I used up all of today's allocation of awesome right off the bat, but the whole day was great.  Why Not and I walked down to a recommended breakfast place and the food there was great!  It is called the 3C's and I was speculating that it might be related to the CCC, the group that built much of the AT in the 30s along with hundreds of firetowers, roads and trails across the country.  I forgot to ask though and was left wondering.

 

Port Clinton

Cool artwork under a bridge

9 AM trail photo

More artwork

We are about halfway through PA

We got a later start than we hoped but the temperatures never got to the expected extremes today so we lucked out.  The terrain was a bit more rolling than it has been recently, but overall even with the rocks it was a very relaxed day.  You can't have a really great day without having bad days to compare it to and similarly our recent longer mileage days made the 15 today feel like cake.  If we were doing 15 every day then it would have just felt normal and not anything special.  I love how that works. 

 

Turtle!

Rabbit in the trail

At Windsor Furnace we ran into Ledge, Bogie and Brownie chilling by the river and stopped to hang out with them for a while. While there we met Shrek, another hiker who we found out started the same day as us. It is crazy we haven't run into him yet but that is the way the trail works.

After another climb we arrived at Pulpit Rock, which is a rock outcrop with a great view. It is right next to Astronomical Park which given the name I had to check out. It is a park filled with about four observatories and was neat to see. I thought it odd to have big observatories like that here given our low elevation from sea level.

 

Ledge, Brownie, Bogie and Why Not taking a break by Windsor Furnace

View from "Pulpit Rocks"

I'm preaching from Pulpit Rock

Astronomical Park

Rocky section of trail

A few miles from that was "The Pinnacle" which provided us with our hands down best view in Pennsylvania so far.  It was shaded and I found the perfect rock shaped like a lounge chair, so naturally I spent about an hour and a half there at least, eating lunch and watching the turkey vultures soar on the updrafts.

 

After this point the trail got easy for a while.  It followed an old dirt road for about three to four miles.  I kept expecting the trail to veer off as it usually does but the white blazes just continued down the road.  Finally after a long time it left the road and we walked another mile of trail before arriving at Hawk Mountain Rd, the location of the shelter.

 



Sitting on "The Pinnacle"

To the right of the above photo

To the right of the above photo

Definitely the biggest cairn I've ever seen on trail...

Eckville shelter is the other shelter in Pennsylvania that has a full time caretaker.  Both it, and the 501 shelter are owned by the National Park Services and the caretaker gets free rent in the nearby house in return for maintenance of the shelter.  Like I mentioned about the 501,  these are basically free hostels more than shelters and provide potable water along with solar showers, etc...  The bugs are bad enough around here though that I am tenting in the tent area instead for my own sanity.  The caretaker had a cooler of ice for us to use which was cool, ice is a real luxury for us.  He also handed out some freeze pops!

 

People trickled in all afternoon.  The cicadas have been making a return to our adventure in the last few days and have been everywhere.  One of the hikers who stopped by but didn't stay showed us all how to cook and eat them.  I did not brave that one but a few others did.  I guess the key is to remove the wings and legs first.  Staying here along with me and Why Not is Still Don't, Muffins, Mr. Dallas, Mess, Shrek, Outfitters and In Progress.  Late in the afternoon in walked Smalls, a hiker who started a thru hike this year but got off in Erwin.  She hiked in a huge amount of trail magic including two cantaloupe!  What a nice surprise!

 

Eckville shelter

Picnic area at Eckville shelter

One sad thing I learned today was that another one of our trail family got off the trail today and headed home.  Hotdog will be sorely missed but it sounds like it was the right thing for her.  Sometimes you see it coming a long way off, but this one was a surprise for all of us I think.  It is sad to see everyone dropping like flies in recent weeks, the thru hikers on the trail are definitely thinning out.

 

Speaking of flies, the fireflies are everywhere tonight and are so much fun to watch.  A number of them keep getting stuck under my rain fly on my tent and I am getting my own private twinkling starscape above me as I write my journal entry.  It makes me feel like I'm cowboy camping without having to deal with the bugs.  What a cool sight!