Miles: 5
Water: 2l
Nerds: 3
We went about 5 miles today for a pretty chill day. The terrain was beautiful, lots of rocks and magnificent vistas.
Played lots of lost cities.
Watched a bunch of Inchworms.
Inch worms are known for steady progress toward a goal. The thing that isn't as well known about them is that they check and consider every move they make. There is lots of flailing during the inching.
Miles:0
Pa rocks took their toll on our feet, took a zero day at the Doyle.
The Doyle is pretty awesome, it's like it is designed to make hipster dudes think it is awesome. The owner gave us a ride to the grocery store today because the kitchen ran out of lettuce. He gave us the brief history of the hotel. A wooden trading post stood here from forever ago. When it burned down in the late 1800's a hotel baron built the current building. For a while it was owned by Budweiser brewing, until prohibition. I think in 1905 the original Doyle gave it it's name. He ran it for years until his death. Since then there have been 3 owners including the current owners who bought it 16 years ago. I imagine it's Wikipedia page is much more accurate.
The building is old and awesome. The clientele is almost entirely hikers and locals. The owners are super friendly to the kind of people they like, and pretty rude to the kinds of people they don't like, tourists and non hikers. There is a constant stream of new people coming and going with that institutional camaraderie inherent in thru hiking. All that and the pent up undercurrent of anxiety that this kind of place must be consumed by the outside world eventually, leads to a magical trap of fascination and in the moment nostalgia.
I'm sure half the people who come here want to write a book about it.
I would want to write a book about it, but there were two transmetropolitan graphic novels in the library here that I read today, and that comic can color your world view cynical.
If you are hiking the AT, you really should at least stop in and see it. I think it's appeal to non hikers is much more limited.
Check out the insides of the fuse box right outside our room. The fuse box is held shut by a folded up brochure wedged in the frame. The whole place is like this. You can look nearly anywhere and find a quaint detail.
Rested up, fresh load of supplies, (the heavy pack that goes with it,) and a short outing planned for tomorrow, I'm ready to get walking again.
Miles:11
Water:4L 1 beer
Dogs: 0
Too much to talk about today.
Last night we pushed up a crazy hill to the next shelter site. On the way we saw two black snakes. The first one was the largest snake I've ever seen in the wild. He was 4 or 5 feet long and had no cares in the world. It was clearly an awesome snake. A little further up the mountain we saw a much smaller black snake, he only rated as rad instead of awesome, so no photos of him.
The shelter was a bro fest because of the holiday weekend, but we tented way in the back, where we met a section hiker named snake. Snake Pliskin. "I heard you were dead" was my correct response. He shook his head, " kids these days, they just don't get it"
(Hagakure: in the times before samurai knew every movie reference, today their vigor is greatly reduced, and the samurai now know only reddit memes.)
We started out early today expecting a busy trail day but things were eerily. We had stepped into a horror movie set up. The trail was littered with millipedes and big black beetles. The only hikers we saw on the trail was a lost family that XL used his trail map powers to save. The trail has turned rocky and mean spirited. The hills and valleys are tough cardio and fitness wise, but rocks keep you off balance all day and savage your feet. So after 8 miles we were at a shelter, and after our big day yesterday we planned on taking a shorter one today.
Starting down the hill to the shelter things got bad, there were two downed trees blocking the path, preventing any easy entry or escape. The shelter was nice, but the picnic table was mysteriously plagued by flies, and if you sat at it for any length of time gypsy moth caterpillars would fall from the trees above and walk on you with their spongy wet feet.
Jamie took a nap and I lay there a bit examining the shelter. The steps to the shelter were torn off, leaned haphazardly against a make shift cooking bench. All the beams were pitted with a thousand tiny holes. The hiker log book was surprising empty, obviously not many ventured down here. There was a creepy poem, framed and hung on the wall, describing how nobody sees nature spirits, but the spirits see us. A stanza was dedicated to how the spirits punish those with wicked intent. This place was already shaping up to be the PA murder cabin.
As XL lay half asleep in one of the bunks I was flipping through the hiker log, she arrived. An older woman with long grey hair, a wolf tee shirt and a pair of blue jeans on. The blue jeans were a dead giveaway, she was of the other. No sane hiker wears jeans. I said hello but she just walked by down into the woods. A few minutes later she came back, standing in the miasma of flies by the picnic table she asked. "What's your name?"
I paused considering what name to give and said, "oh I'm coinflip" expecting the normal trail name swap. I'll try to give this next bit as close to verbatim as possible.
"Oh good, makin sure you weren't one of them gators. Ran into two gators up top, so I came down here. They wanted to show me a time, but I don't mess with them gators. They known thieves and killers. That's why I got this."
At this point she flipped open a good sized knife. The blade flopping this way and that like the blade lock was busted. I made a comment about how she should get a new knife, having the lock broken like that is really dangerous.
"Knife is good." She said putting it away, "my stun gun is busted, gotta get a new un. Can't be to careful with these gators around. They tried to kill me. They held up the fifth street bank, broad daylight, 5 million, nobody does nothin about em. 10 gauge shotgun, pointed right at me in the bank, took us all on an airplane. Gators dangerous."
At this point I had Busied myself with the log book. Adding just the occasional lame, oh? Or timid wow. She at this point drifted off.
About an hour and a half passed, I chatted with a through hiker who stopped to get some water. Jamie and I were getting ready to claim bunks in the murder shelter, get water, maybe make dinner when the woman came back.
"Was gonna stay up top but saw two gators up there" she said as she entered the shelter and took a top bunk.
At this point Jamie and I initiated a secret conversation by text, he said that if I got fresh water, he would be willing to do the extra 4 miles to Duncannon. So I grabbed the water and we hiked the super Rocky four miles out, beating the rain.
Everything was in place for a perfect horror movie. Creepy cabin, weird poems, crazy person, lost family, rainy night, millipedes. We politely declined and walked away.
In all seriousness I feel for that woman, she obviously has some issues, but it didn't seem prudent to spend the night, just the two of us and her. She seemed nervous about being attacked, so it seemed better to move on than risk the chance (even a small chance) of someone getting hurt.
So instead we are at AT legendary hotel, "the Doyle". I have never seen a more polarized yelp listing, so many 5 stars so many 1 stars. This place is 100 years old, wonderful woodwork and fixtures, and totally fallen into decay. For 25 bucks a night +10 for an extra person you get two beds and a shower. The carpet has a huge hole in it, the screens are stapled into the windows. You don't get ac you get 15 year old oscillating fan. Four stories, balcony, tiny bar downstairs. The kitchen closed early for Sunday, and it might not even be open tomorrow for the holiday, so I can't vouch for the food. But that beer tasted good after our bonus hike today.
Ok stupid long post, today's nature quiz, we saw this turtle in the trail today, high backed shell, nice orange color to the shell and his legs. I've never seen a turtle like this before, what is he?
Miles:14
Water:4l
Dogs: too many
Back on the trail today, feeling mostly recovered. We have left the hills of maryland behind and are in the long flat of Pa. Most everything we saw today was tall grass and farms, which is at least a change of pace from rocks and trees. We saw a herd of bears today. They seemed pretty docile, I don't know what everyone is afraid of.
Grass is fascinating. Walking through fields I would have expected at least my legs to be in the shade from the waist high vegetation, but we were in sun all day. Grass must be cleverly adapted to get what light it needs while still letting the sun hit its neighbors. Looking down into the grass it would be two feet before I even started to see shadows. We passed a field of planted wheat and the effect was more pronounced. You could easily see sunlight hitting the ground around the wheat.
Grass is so weird compared to other plants. It is long and skinny without branching, a single blade of grass is pretty well screwed, vulnerable to being eaten or pulled up by its single pitiful root. In a field of grass that single leaf is anonymous and safe. If something wants to eat it. The animal will probably get a mouthful of lots of leaves, letting them recover a group. The roots are so entangled as to be one, so pulling the grass up or eroding it is nearly impossible too. Grass! So awesome!
How does grass reproduce? You can buy grass seeds. Does it have a yearly reproduction cycle or is it continually growing? No flowers makes me think it spreads by its roots? Is grass seed tiny root balls?
While laying in the grass during lunch I saw these tiny flowers. They are only about 1cm across, and were lost in the clover. What are they?
Another not much to report day. A friend of ours Jon drove us back out to the trail. He gave us cookies.
We are staying at a swanky old school resort called the Allenberry. It's kind of like an episode of madmen. I was almost forced to get a gimlet. They have an excellent rate for thru hikers, so the clientele is a weird mix of trail trash and wedding parties.
Tomorrow we hit the trail again and have to put up a 14 to the next shelter.
Can anyone identify this wild cookie?
Not much to say today, badger picked us up last night. Thank you badgers for your hospitality. Tammy said we are helping her live out her dream of running a b and b for thru hikers.
We watched tv and napped. Stopped at a local outfitter, and I picked up a closed foam mattress that I'm going to try instead of my warmer more comfortable air mattress. I wonder what my ttr on that will be?
I think star wars: rebels is my favorite flavor of star wars out side of the original three movies.
The amount of regret on the ice cream Challenge looms large. Last night as we were making camp I started to feel sick. This morning I definitely was sick. It feels like a standard cold, headache, sore throat, congestion.
We hiked today anyway, well jamie hiked, I followed like a zombie 20 paces behind him.
About mid day we started talking about taking a zero day. When we got to a shelter I texted my friend badger, and I think he is going to come pick us up and we are going to spend a couple days in state college.
We saw a snake in a lake this morning, I can't tell if the pics came out on this crappy phone. There were also dragonflies, freshly chestbursted out of their nymph stage and hardening their wings in the sun.
In one of the comments phil mentioned the concept of time to trail. Or how long it takes to pack your stuff up and go. I have been noticing another version I've been mentally calling time til regret. Mostly this has been in the case of me wearing a hoodie when we start out in the morning. It generally takes me any 10 minutes to regret wearing it..
We passed the midpoint of the trail today, and just after the midpoint is the pine grove furnace country store. Home of the half gallon challenge. After the halfway point you eat a half gallon of ice cream. We have been hanging with an awesome group of thru hikers and we all took up the challenge. As it turns out the time to regret on eating a carton of ice cream, and a hand packed pint is about 25 minutes.
Eating that volume of food is slightly problematic, but doable and if it's the right food, pretty good. That much of any single thing, especially rich, sweet, creamy ice cream is downright bad. It doesn't take long before the very taste of sugar causes your tongue to cringe.
Turns out it takes about an hour to eat that much ice cream. A long grind of an hour spent laughing with 24 hour friends.
I'm sitting in camp, tendonitis setting in on my right ankle, a mystery sore throat, and about to go buy a giant burger. I'm considering my time til regret on this trip, and I'm happy to report ttr is greater than 11 days.
We saw this frog today what kind is he? What is a good name for him? All I know is he has unfounded confidence in his camouflage.
We stayed at a hostel last night run by a local church, 22 bucks, bed, shower, and all you can eat dinner, count me in. When we told the pastor about our millage and starting point, he pulled some ridiculous mind reading routine on us. He told us every shelter we stopped at, in order, and even added in that we got pizza at one particular shelter. Turns out he was a trail volunteer for 20 years and had hiked our route dozens of times.
We left early and came by a ridiculous shelter early on. Two shelters joined by a roof, retractable wind screen for the porch, hanging flowers, raised wooden tent platforms, a metal bear proof box, and a freaking sundial. There is a bench swing under construction now. Apparently one of the locals has made it his weekend project to build the most fabulous shelter known to man.
There were no flowers today. Pa is barren of flowers apparently, just full of blighted brush. At the end of the day I finally found some, tiny, yellow, and low to the ground. The camera color doesn't convey how cute they were. This is probably an easy one.
Miles: 9.x
Water 1l
Dogs: none :(
Rain, walking etc.
I finished my book last night so I figured I'd review it.
Book review:
Hagakure
(A guide on the worst ways to live your life)
Remember that Forest Whittaker movie where he was a gangster who wandered around spouting samurai sayings? That glorious movie was "ghost dog: way of the samurai" Well it turns out the book he was quoting all that stuff from is real! And hilariously awful.
It is hagakure, a 16th or 17th century text about how to live your life if you are a samurai. (No internet right now, so no fact checking) It seems to be written by a cranky old man might make sense in a time where your employers required you to enter death pacts, but when translated to a modern society seems deeply insane.
You can tell he is a cranky duffer because he constantly says things like "samurai of years past contained greater vigors than those of today. They could fight for days and were totes amazing compared to the scrubs we have today. To avoid your natural inferiority to the people of my time, you gotta study this book."
The obsession with death in the text is pervasive. Much of the book takes the form of anecdotes. About half of these anecdotes include someone throwing their life away for no reason. "A guy looked a samurai funny, the samurai cut him down. Another samurai watched it and thought it was a righteous slaying, and promised to back him up, no matter what. The first samurai was sentenced to death by the magistrate, so he killed himself, the second samurai who promised to stand by the first guy killed himself. Then everyone involved in the trail were so ashamed they sentenced such an honorable guy to death, they all killed themselves. This is the way of the samurai"
The author is obsessed with the way of the samurai. Even though it is mostly just lay your life down for your master. And kill anyone else or yourself for random petty Crap.
I liked the one story where a guy killed four other guys who ambushed him. But one of the ambushers cut his neck through the spine. So our super tough hero (remember old timey guys are way cooler than you kids), held his head in place, and walked to the doctor, sans spinal cord. The doctor strapped his head in place, applied some tree sap, buried the guy up to his neck in rice and left him there to heal. The samurai never complained and was better in a week.
So much fun ridiculous stuff in here, but when read for what it is, pretty chilling stuff. Ideally the author would want the reader to be indoctrinated into a bizarre arbitrary death pact.
I might share more of my favorite stories and aphorisms in future posts.
What book should I read next?
The scarlet plague, Jack London
Secret adversary, agatha christie
Use of weapons, ian m banks
Miles: 8.x
Water: 1L
Average dog age: 3
Not much happened today. XL (Jamie) felt much better after our zero day and a switch to aleve instead of ibuprofen.
I suspect that once jamie gets recovered and caught up cardio, I'm in trouble. His base pace is faster than mine. Who knows, maybe I'll get faster, but my natural tendency is a mosey. Maybe get up to a lope if things are crazy.
No flower today, today we play "millipede or caterpillar". This guy was cute, and I touched him, so don't confirm that he is a vile millipede. That would creep me out. Bonus points if you identify the species.
We took an extra day off yesterday. To give Jamie's ankle some much needed rest. This is known on the trail as a, zero day, as in zero miles. Zero day always sounds like the first day of a chud outbreak.
We played forbidden desert in the local waynesboro game store, gamers gaming games. The store was ok but looked mostly like a warhammer and ccg store. No rpg or board game selection to speak of, but they do have a small board game library.
Forbidden desert was a pretty good game. Better than forbidden island by far. It has that slowly degrading world effect like pandemic, but with novel mechanics to do it. It does a good job rewarding you when you fall. It seemed like a good tough co op. It wouldn't replace pandemic in my dream game library however.
Onward to hike in the rain for the next two days.
Miles: 10 or so
Water: over 2l hard to say
Dog age: insufficient data
We are kind of hiking now. We did ten today. Prolly go easy tomorrow, Jamie's ankle did not fare well on the rocks today. Doing some laundry at waynesboro, and enjoying a luxury night at a hotel.
There are all kinds of people on the trail. Still universally friendly. It is disconcerting to be around so many people so willing to help. But it is infectious. I gave a spoon to a stranger. (Her name is ranger, stranger ranger!)
Of the many types of hikers I've seen So far are the crazed loners. (I'm sure I'll be covering the other types along the way, don't worry the moss post is still coming)
We have seen two, crazed loners so far. They shun the shelters, normally just stopping in to say hi. Then melting away into the woods to set up a tent. The CL seems to just want to be left alone, and do crazy miles.
The first one we met was an old guy with a Swiss mountain man beard, I swear it curled upward. He was from Quebec and barely spoke English. He didn't know the word for north. He passed us in the rain the other day, wearing his tent fly as a jacket over his body and pack. He looked like a giant wearing a castle as a suit.
The other CL just goes by stealth. He came into camp last night pretty early. Dropped his pack, then walked the two miles into town and back in about an hour. Came back into camp, offered everyone hostess childcare cupcakes that looked like baseballs, signed the shelter guest book and then disappeared to his tent. He cruised by us at an alarming pace around 10 am today. We will never see him again. When I looked at the shelter book, instead of a cute message, he wrote only a single word. "Stealth"
I aspire to be a crazed loner.
Today's flower is a purple thing with a woody stem. They are all over the place.
miles:7
Water: 1.4
Average dog age: 6
Just figured I would say that it is entirely possible that I don't update every day. This hopefully means in not dead yet.
The awesome Josh Moore sent me fan art. I am super excited about it.
Today's flower I saw a couple of times on the side of trail today. They are an orchid of some kind. They look sort of like the Martians from sesame street. Yup yup yup yip yup yup yup. Look up those videos, those guys crack me up.
Miles: 5.8 plus back tracking
Water: 1 l or so. But it was raining
Average dog based anything: 0
Im so bad at this, is a phrase that has entered the high traffic section of my vocabulary. I say it all the time. I'm pretty good at waking places slowly. Which is the main job, but all the ancillary tasks require a temperament that I don't naturally possess.
The key to a lot of this thing is staying organized, and having a plan. I'm cluttered in my personal space, so I misplace everything. My tooth brush in a rando pack pocket instead of my toiletries bag, I packed my trail guide in with my food. Now the guide smells unpleasantly like industrial garlic. I need to find a proper system.
You are required to unpack and repack everything essential every day. The high speed trail bros and lady bros are up and going in about 20 min or less. I'm closer to 40 min, cause I'm bad at this.
Today we saw the Washington monument. Not that crappy two toned Egyptian spire. The first monument to Washington. Made by the hands of the hard-working people of boonsville. Then allowed to fall into disrepair. Only to be rebuilt. Then allowed to creep into decrepitude, just to be rebuilt again, this time with a state park.
The monument is sweet, a stone tower with thick walls and a spiral staircase inside. I tried to pee of the top of it. But I got scared. So I peed off the lower deck instead. Moral victory.
Let's play identify this flower. It has a sweet leaf umbrella over a white blossom. First one to tell me what it is (because I don't know) gets a flower point. Flower points can only be redeemed for cheezits at a later date.
DeeMiles: 6.8
Water: 1.5 liters
Average dog age today: 1.75
Average dog age total: 3.125t
Today was very good. Jamie hiked just fine on his ankle, we pushed up to 7 miles today and felt good about it. I feel like we have started down the path to getting enough miles to actually making it.
The camp site we are at has free showers, did some laundry in a utility sink too. We hopped an uber into town with a boring guy who was at the camp with us. I don't care about the biomechics of bursitis or your veiled open marriage references. I just care about topping of my food supply with something other than salty mashed potato.
So we are getting pizza. The pizza shop was playing Rod Stewart when we got here. I considered leaving. But white wedding has improved the music selection.
I have a post brewing in my head about moss. But I need to save it for a boring day. I wouldn't want to blow your minds with all the excitement.
Miles:4
Water: 1 liter plus some
Average dog age: 7
Shelter sleeping is not for me. Packed in next to six other people who are trying to sleep doesn't mesh well with me. I like to read before bed, but didn't because I didn't want to use a light. I tend to toss and turn, which made me nervous about interrupting others. I had a massive headache, but didn't want to get up to get ibuprofen. So I might have gotten a couple of hours sleep.
Today we did an easy dayy again, just over 4 miles. We are adjusting to carrying the packs and today went better for Jamie, he looked much less like he was going to die.
Until he turned his ankle while we were headed to camp. Thankfully it didn't look too bad. We will know better in the morning.
His air mattress also developed a hole, and since tonight it is supposed to be in the 30s it would have been a cold night without it. We used science to find the leak. If science is dunking the thing in a river. Then when that fails, pouring water all over it and rolling it up until we found a hissing noise.
Tonight I pitched my tent and am sleeping solo..hopefully it is much nicer. But I'm bad at this so my tent runs slightly down hill. And I'm all crammed into one side. Here is to hoping I don't freeze.
I would like to be doing more than 5 miles a day. But Phil's sage advice was to go easy and safe. The more I consider that as a primary foundation of our hiking philosophy, the more our leisurely start makes sense.
FMiles: like 4 maybe more if you count the walk to the spring.
Water: 1 liter. But jamie drank mine too. The scamp.
Got a late start today, drove into harpers ferry with Phil. Phil convinced me that I have no business doing this. Then he said stuff like "you are doing this right" and "you will be fine" we met jamie about ten min outside of Harper's ferry. And hiked to our camp about 3 miles away.
There are a ton of people here. Our shelter is full. Everyone is super friendly. It's horrible. My pretending to like people skills are pushed to the max. I think instead of using the shelter I'll just tent next time.
Jaime nearly died. I fear his cardio prep is pretty low. We are taking another short day tomorrow ramping up a bit.
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| this is about how I feel right now |
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| I'm some kind of catfish! |
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| The skanky inside of my work truck! |
