Rocks

Blog

We left 501 shelter with the goal of getting to a road crossing 9.8 miles away before 11:30am to met up with my (LEGO's) two sisters, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. We saw them drive up as we walked into the pull-off. What great timing. They took us to a grocery store and to a combined A&W and Long John Silvers. It was so nice to see family members again even if only for a few hours. They dropped us back off and then we finished the day with another 5.9 miles to Eagles Nest Shelter. This was also the first day in five days that the temperature and humidity was reasonable and not out of control. At the shelter we met a very nice section hiker named John (didn't catch the last name) who had just recently learned about the trail and was out on his first overnight hike. It was really cool talking with him. Good luck on future hikes John, if you're reading this.

On the 3rd, we woke up to much cooler weather (maybe high 50s) which was a nice surprise. Early on in to the day we hiked through the small town of Port Clinton, PA which we were hoping would have denatured alcohol for our stove. They didn't but about a mile down a four lane highway was a Walmart so Redwood hanged tight with the packs while I (LEGO) walked the extra 1.8 miles there and back (Redwood is very thankful). Pennsylvania is known for it's rocks and today we started to see way. There were many short sections where you are walking across large boulders. So you can imagine after 23.8 miles to Eckville Shelter our feet were killing us.

The next day from the first minute to the last we were walking on rocks. It may not been the best idea to go 24.2 miles to George W. Outerbridge Shelter, but we did. The rocks came in many different forms but none felt great on the feet. Large boulder piles, small pointy rocks sticking out of the ground, medium sized loose stone on the trail, all of it was horrible. For a normal day, the terrain profile looked great but on rocks we move at half speed so this was a long and painful day.

Unfortunately the 5th was not much better than the pervious day. More rocks than we know what to do with. Because of poorly placed shelters we choose to go 16.7 to Leroy A. Smith Shelter rather than the 30.5 to the next one. We had the option to camp in between but water in PA is somewhat sparse and is mostly located at shelters so we often have little choice of where we stay. Have I mentioned that our feet really hurt and we hate these rocks and cannot wait to get to New Jersey (didn't think I'd ever say that in my life).

We had been warned that the trail continued to be rocky until the Delaware Water Gap and this made it very hard to leave the shelter this morning (June 6th). However knowing that we were heading to town was a big motivator especially since a friend of my (LEGO's) uncle and aunt's was going to pick us up and take us to his place for the night. The day actually started out okay. We made it about 13.8 miles in just over 5 hours which is an amazing accomplishment considering how many rocks there were--yet again. Somewhere along the way though, probably around 2 hours into the day, our feet starting hurting and haven't stopped completely even now 6 hours after we stopped hiking. To really make you understand how bad the rocks are and how much we hate them we'll say it again: we are so glad to get out of PA and into NJ. I bet it's actually quite pretty in PA but you can't enjoy any of the scenery because you have to look down at your feet all day to avoid the rocks (and by that I mean step on the least pointy looking ones because you can't avoid them all). And no matter what you do your feet will hurt anyway. We won't miss the rocks.

We stopped for lunch at that shelter then hiked the last 6.4 miles in the Delaware Water Gap. We only stopped there briefly (we're going back tomorrow) then walked across the I-80 bridge into NJ where we were picked up by Carmen at the visitor center. We stopped for a delicious Italian dinner and a food resupply then went back to Carmen's house in NJ to do laundry, shower, and spend the night before heading back to the trail tomorrow morning.

That's it for now.

LEGO & Redwood

Halfway Point

We must apologize for the length of time it has taken to get this update out. Neither of us has really blogged much before this so we aren't the best at being timely. Nevertheless, we hope it was worth the wait and we'll try to be faster next time.

For this post we thought we might talk for a while about our overall experience in Shenandoah National Park. Before leaving on this trip we had heard so many good things about the Shenandoah's and other hikers out here confirmed this. There are even rummurs that spread amoung the thru-hikers. Some of them include wonderful wildlife, lots of trail magic, tourists wanting your photograph, great veiws, blackberry milkshakes at every road crossing, and we were promised (by two people) that we would definitely see bears. Our experienced was nothing like this.

The weather does play a big part of how we feel but having five straight days of overcast foggy and rainy sky will effect ones spirt. The ironic thing was we had some sun the day we come into the park and then not again until we had walked about a mile out of the park. We had no trail magic, no road side milkshakes, no tourists, the fog covered every view, and most disappointing, NO BEARS. It was best summed up by a hiker when they said, "I came to the realization that Shenandoah is meant to be driven not hiked." Did we mention that the road can be heard from almost every mile of the trail.

The short list of things we liked about Shenandoah include the easy terrain and easy access for visitors. Our biggest highs were being picked up by my (LEGO's) uncle, aunt, and cousin and then two days later being visited by my sister and bother-in-law.

At the end of the Shenandoah's we lost our entire group we were hiking with because they needed to go into Front Royal, VA while we did not. However we hiked on with an older fellow named "One Gray Wolf" and we have since continued hiking together.

On the 20th, we started off with the roller coaster which are ten 400 foot climbs over 13 miles. They were not fun, they just physically and mentally drain you. Then we crossed over in to West Virginia for the first time and then even more excitingly we hit the 1,000 mile mark.

After being dropped of on skyline drive by my (LEGO's) extended family we covered these miles and stayed at these shelters for the past week:

1.2mi to Hightop Hut
12.4mi to Bearfence Mountain
22.4mi to Byrd Nest #3 Hut
17.5mi to Gravel Springs Hut
18.6mi to Jim & Molly Denton
18.4mi to Rod Hollow
21mi to David Lesser Memorial
8.7mi to Harpers Ferry, WV

The plan for leaving Harpers Ferry was to move on to the next shelter or if we are feeling good maybe the one after that. Surprisely we were feeling great and the second shelter was full so we end up going to the third shelter out of Harpers Ferry, Rock Run Shelter (24.7 miles total that day).

In Maryland the trail seemed to be much more gradual and wide enough for two. As billed we found it to be one of the easiest sections of the trail. We ended up spending about 2 days in Maryland and a bit of the morning of a third day. On May 23rd we crossed into Pennsylvania. We ended up hiking 19.8 miles this day. It was a very long, slow day. We ended up getting to the shelter that we wanted to stay at at about 6:30pm only to find it full. As a result we had to camp which wasn't ideal at the end of a long day.

The next day we only hiked 13 miles because we were going to meet LEGO's brother Greg. He got in late for us thru-hikers but everyone got out of bed for the pumpkin pie, cheese cake and beer. In the morning he cooked everyone breakfast burritos and fresh coffee. We headed out around 8am and after about 6 miles we made it to the halfway point of the trail at 1,090.5 miles. It felt pretty great to realize that after 10.5 weeks on the trail we were halfway done. After that we walked 3 more miles to Pine Grove Furnace State Park where we had planned to attempt the "half gallon challenge." The goal of the challenge is to eat an entire half gallon of ice cream. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the general store was closed so we didn't get to see if we could do it.

Greg met us at the park when we got there and drove us meet Jon's sister who drove us back to Ithaca, New York. We were heading home for my (Redwood) sister's graduation and for 2 days off the trail. After just passing the halfway point of the trail this was a good time to take a much needed break.

On May 28th we returned to Pine Grove Furnace State Park to continue our trek where we left off. We didn't arrive until 4:30pm so we only hiked 7.5 miles that day finishing just after 7pm at Tagg Run Shelter. Unfortunately, the group we had been hiking with is now completely broken and split up with some ahead of us and some behind. Or as Mammoth pit it: "the fellowship is broken." Hopefully, we can reunite sometime soon as we continue down the trail.

The next day we planned to hike 26.3 miles to get through the Cumberland Valley where you can't camp. This would have been our longest day but unfortunately, due to the heat and high humidity we weren't able to make it all the way. The terrain was pretty flat for a lot of the day but those of you who have exercised in high humidity know how it can sap every bit of energy out of you and that's exactly what happened to us. We were taking a break at an Appalachian Trail Conservancy storage area at about 7pm preparing to hike the last 4 miles to Darlington Shelter when the woman who was the caretaker for the buildings told us we could camp there if we were discrete about it. That's exactly what we did. She was very nice and also gave us sodas and her leftover salad from dinner. Staying there made our day as it would have been very difficult to hike another 4 miles that late on a very long, hot day. This day ended up being about 22 miles.

The next day we hiked 20 miles to Clark's Ferry Shelter passing through Duncannon, PA on the way. This day was also very hot and humid so we stopped in Duncannon for an hour or so to cool off. We each ended up eating 1.5 quarts of ice cream which made us both very full. It wasn't quite a half gallon but it wasn't too far off. After getting over feeling full and somewhat sick the ice cream fueled us up the final climb to the shelter.

On May 31st we started out planning to hike about 20 miles. We ended up walking the first 13 miles in about 4.5 hours despite the the continued heat and humidity. We stopped for lunch by a very nice stream and ended up spending 3 hours there. It was a perfect place to swim which was great on such a hot day. After swimming, relaxing, and cleaning some clothes we headed out at about 4pm. Instead of stopping at 20 miles like we had planned, we ended up going 24.7 miles to Rausch Shelter. The last several miles were really tough and seemed to take forever. It was a real challenge to keep walking. We finally made it, feet hurting badly, at 8:30pm. We ate dinner, hung our bear bag, and went right to sleep.

June 1st. Today we hiked 17.5 miles to 501 shelter. Most of the day was relatively uneventful except for a short thunderstorm that cooled us off briefly in the early afternoon only to be followed by more heat and humidity. When we got to the shelter we were greeted with leftover pizza that our trail friend "Hansel" and "Silver Fox" couldn't finish. Also already at the shelter was "Quiet Paul," a former thru-hiker who had served us a delicious trail magic breakfast back in North Carolina. He was out doing a south bound section hike. It was cool to see him again and he even treated us to dinner (you could order take out at this shelter because it's near a road). Two great meals from the same guy on two completely different sections of the trail. "Quiet Paul" is just a really nice, really great guy. Thanks again Paul, wherever you are. This great shelter also has a shower so we got take take showers and clean up as well. And to top everything off, two hikers that came in later just gave us there leftover pizza, chicken wings, and bread sticks. What a great day!

And that gets you up to date. Hopefully it won't be so long until the next update. Until then....

LEGO & Redwood