Appalachian Trail backpacking trip, ‘The Fast Runner’, ‘My Architect’ (posted from home)
(This post covers 27 September to 5 November, 2007)
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Monday, 5 November-
Today Labashi and I worked on crown molding for the living/dining room update. Unfortunately, my old radial arm saw isn’t a great tool for this. We can cut fine in one direction but the new crown molding is wider than the old and the saw motor conflicts with the wood stock on certain cuts. Labashi has done some amazing work using her little plastic miter box but that one doesn’t work either— again the wider molding is a problem. We spent an hour on the flat-cut method but the joints weren’t good enough—they all made a joint of less than 90 degrees—something like 87 degrees. We could probably get away with that by using a little filler upon assembly but Labashi wants it right on 90 degrees. We came up with a solution for most cuts but may run into problems if we happen to need the right (‘wrong’, that is) set of cuts.
That evening we watched a very interesting documentary, ‘My Architect: A Son’s Journey’. This film by Nathaniel Kahn tells the story of architect Louis Kahn from his illegitimate son’s point of view. Mr. Kahn was a world-famous architect and workaholic but had significant personal shortcomings. He was emotionally stunted and had a secret life in which he fathered two out-of-marriage children to two different women, both working in his office.
Nathaniel did a magnificent job of collecting footage of his father and crafting a compelling story of his search for the ‘truth’ about his Dad and what he learned along the way. Highly recommended!
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Sunday, 4 November-
After sleeping in a bit we took JustJ for a big breakfast at the local diner and then sent him on his way to visit his other uncle’s family and the new baby for a day before heading home. We declared our trip a great success. We had done 24 miles of very rocky trail and our feet were a little worse for wear but overall it had gone very well. We had good weather, learned a few things, hadn’t gotten hurt, and had met some very interesting people—what more could you ask for?
That afternoon I was changing shirts when Labashi noticed a bright red mark with a dark center on my side. It was a tick! I’ve picked off a tick or two before after hiking but this one was different. Its head was buried deep into my side and it was surrounded by a very red patch of blood under the skin. I’ve had success with the liquid-soap method of detaching a tick but it didn’t work on this one. Putting a big dab of liquid soap on the back of the tick blocks off the tick’s breathing and generally you only need wait a few minutes and then you can pick off the tick with a cotton ball or tweezers. But this one didn’t release. The tick’s body would raise up in reaction to the liquid soap but it wouldn’t let go. Labashi then tried the old hot-needle method but that also failed and in the meantime we had squeezed too far back on the body of the tick, possibly making things worse by pushing bodily fluids into the wound. We called the insurance hot line and the nurse had us pull firmly-but-gently and the tick finally came out but it wasn’t clear whether we had it all—we could see a small black mark under the skin. So that did it— I decided I’d better (and the nurse recommended) going to an emergency room. I drove in to York Hospital and after a short wait was seen by the doctor. Incredibly, York Hospital turns out to have a tick expert. He’s a recognized expert on ticks and even has a collection of them, apparently ones he has removed from patients. He instantly identified mine as a deer tick but noted it was not engorged and had not been on me long enough (most likely) to infect me with Lyme Disease. I’ve since found these very interesting links on this subject: http://www.aldf.com/deerTickEcology.shtml and http://www.aldf.com/news.shtml#SpirochetePoster . In my case they gave me a tetanus shot and a 200 mg single dose of Doxycycline and sent me on my way.
That evening we watched ‘The Fast Runner’, a truly remarkable movie from the Foreign section at our local Blockbuster. This 2002 film is an Inuit production and retells an ancient legend of a small community cursed by the visit of an evil shaman. The photography is fantastic and carried us through a few slower spots in the story-telling. The intimate view of Inuit life is unparalleled and deeply humanizing. I see RottenTomatoes ranks it in the 90’s and I heartily agree. Highly, highly recommended.
How can I find more movies like this?
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Saturday, 3 November-
Last night the temperatures were again in the low thirties. I had gotten shivery-cold in the middle of the night Thursday night in my lightweight sleeping bag so this time I donned my spare shirt, vest, gloves, and extra socks before climbing into the bag and that worked out well. We awoke around 0730 and had finished breakfast and packing when three Boy Scouts and three leaders walked into camp. They were from Troop 1 at Elizabethtown and were headed for Peter’s Mountain Shelter. We chatted awhile before we left them to their break. We had been on the protected side of the mountain at the shelter and I left in shirtsleeves but as the trail wound to the top the wind picked up quite a bit and I had to don a jacket. By lunch time we had reached the new AT bridge across 225 on Peter’s Mountain. As we continued hiking in to the shelter I saw a familiar face approaching. It seemed too great a coincidence to run into someone I know on the trail so I took a second look, and then a third— yep, it was Rabbit! This was great! Rabbit and I had hiked and camped on the further reaches of the AT-in-PA along with our buddy rar some five years ago. Today Rabbit and wifey were dayhiking and enjoying the views on this sunny day. We talked with big smiles on our faces for a few minutes and then had to move on. JustJ and I plodded on to Peter’s Mountain Shelter, reaching there in mid-afternoon. We had a late lunch and talked with two somewhat-odd thru-hikers. This was a father-son pair from Old Forge, New York who had hiked down to Valley Forge, PA and then hiked the Horseshoe Trail from there to its intersection with the AT in St. Anthony’s Wilderness. The father, now in his mid-Forties I’d say, noted he had done a similar long distance hike 20 years ago and wanted his son to see what it was like and he himself needed a break from his factory-worker/couch-potato life. His son was a recent high-school grad not sure what he wanted to do next so the time was right for a hike. They had left home in early August and were hoping to make it to Georgia. But there were some odd things about their story. Dad claimed they had hiked 60 miles on their first day so they were only able to do 9 or 10 the next day. Sixty miles? No way. On the other hand, maybe that was a mistake or I misunderstood. Maybe that was a combination of hitch-hiking and walking. These guys are not your typical thru-hikers. They are very like the hikers from the early days of the AT — dressed in everyday jeans and sweatshirts, practical, thrifty, unimpressed by technology, physically tough, a little naïve in some ways. I found it interesting that the father rolled and lit up a cigarette and spoke of the brand of rolling tobacco that lasted best on the trail (and no, it wasn’t a wacky-tobacky).
But today they were paying a penalty for their lack of technology. They were supposed to meet up with a guy bringing them supplies but have no idea where he is or when he might show. He’s already a day late and they’ve been hanging around the shelter hoping he’ll show. And there the story is a little weird too. They’re expecting him to come in from the north. That would mean a six-and-a-half mile walk including a steep climb. If he came from the south he’d be able to drive to the top and walk less than half the distance and he’d be intercepting their southward course rather than chasing behind them. Then again, maybe we didn’t understand the story or we just have the advantage of local knowledge. Their stories about the Horseshoe Trail led me to believe they really did hike it and I was happy to hear about conditions along the trial. The eastern portion of the Horseshoe has seen development to the point where they often walked between suburban homes and felt they were under the watchful and suspicious eyes of the residents. They had been checked by police a few times. The dad said he had been able to find work washing dishes or doing odd jobs on his trip 20 years ago but now everyone needed background checks and long-term commitments so they weren’t able to find work. Now that’s interesting. How many people do you run into today who are trying to do a long distance trail by picking up drudge work along the way to finance the trip?
JustJ and I were glad to be moving on and away from those guys because of the little things that didn’t add up. But the more I think about it the more I believe we were seeing back in time to an alternate way of ‘doing’ a long-distance hike. They had no freeze-dried food, no Gore-Tex, no phones or PDA-based topo maps. They are just out there enjoying life on the trail the best way they know. I wish them well.
I had talked with Labashi by cell early in the day to arrange a pickup for late this afternoon and had confirmed those arrangements before we left the shelter. JustJ and I hiked another mile to the intersection with the Victoria Trail and then a mile down to the road where we met up with Labashi at 1700. As we drove back across the Susquehanna at Duncannon toward our departure parking lot we talked about stopping somewhere for supper and it occurred to me we could introduce Labashi to the famous Doyle Hotel. Pat and Vicki were happy to see us and we had a wonderful evening in their friendly little bar telling Labashi about our adventures on the trail then picked up the cars and headed home for nice, hot showers.
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Friday, 2 November-
Today we awoke late —0830— at Cove Mountain shelter and enjoyed the sun warming us as we cooked breakfast. The night had been a good one. I woke around three and wondered who had left the lights on—the moon was so bright I didn’t need a light for my trip out to water the posies. After breakfast we filled our water bottles at the spring, packed up, and headed out. We had taken our good old time lounging around and didn’t get underway until 1100 and once again had shirt-sleeve weather. We took a break at the informal campsite above Hawk Rock and there heard hikers coming at us from both directions. Two section hikers were coming in from the south and two SOBOs (southbound thru-hikers) came up from the rock. The SOBOs were Allgood and Odysseus. They got on the trail in Maine on the first of August and are headed for Springer Mountain (Georgia) but I’d think that would be a tough schedule to keep. I didn’t catch the dayhiker’s names but they’re from the Cleveland area and are doing the trail in sections. They’ve done Maryland, West Virginia, much of Virginia, and most of Pennsylvania, as well as sections in New York, and Connecticut. They’re looking forward to Massachusetts and then the White Mountains next year. That’s incredible. It’s very impressive that people thru-hike the AT but the multi-state section hikers are also amazing.
After our break we descended to Hawk Rock and enjoyed the view before descending to Duncannon. As we walked through town we decided to have lunch at the Doyle Hotel, one of the landmarks of the AT. The Doyle is renowned and you see log entry after log entry by thru-hikers anxious to get to the Doyle or extolling their visit. Historically it has been characterized as a fleabag hotel whose claim to fame is cheap beer and hiker-sized burgers. We were welcomed by owners Pat and Vicki who really know how to welcome us. Vicki astutely pegged us as section hikers while serving drinks and Pat patiently explained the entire menu to us. We didn’t get to see a room but the bar area was nice—certainly not in the ‘fleabag’ category—and the food was plentiful and good. What a great little place!
That afternoon we plodded through Duncannon and across the Clark’s Ferry Bridge to the base of Peter’s Mountain. We made it up to Clark’s Ferry Shelter by 1700 and were happy to find we had it to ourselves. A very fit and energetic lone-wolf backpacker had passed us on the way up the mountain and we thought we’d find him at the shelter but apparently he went on to the next shelter. We only did ten miles today but was just about right for us tenderfeet. Somehow my pack worked its way up to 40 pounds and I felt every ounce of it climbing the switchbacks. After a short rest we gathered and cut firewood for the evening and decided to forego supper because of our big lunch at the Doyle. That evening we heard a screech owl, two barred owls talking back and forth, and a deer snorted very loudly nearby… apparently not impressed by the smell of the fire (or perhaps the hikers).
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Thursday, 1 November-
I spent the morning finishing up with trip prep. I met my nephew (JustJ…) in Marysville around noon and we drove west on 850 to the Appalachian Trail crossing. We had picked up subs in Marysville so ate there in the parking lot as we went over the trail map before heading out. We had a spectacular sunny day and hiked very comfortably in short sleeves (in November)! At four miles we checked in on one of my geocaches along the trail before moving on another mile to the Cove Mountain shelter for the night. We gathered firewood and had a nice fire going by dark. In preparing supper, JustJ…’s cool Jetboil stove made my little Superfly stove look silly. I was still waiting for my water to boil as he began eating. In other words, he had boiled water in the Jetboil, added it to the freeze-dried meal, waited for it to reconstitute, and was starting to eat while I was still looking at tiny little bubbles and willing them to turn into a rolling boil. Impressive!
We had an ultra-clear evening and I could see six of the Seven Sisters overhead (JustJ could see all seven). We stared into the fire, caught up on family news, and solved most of the problems of the known world—if only they’d listen to us.
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Wednesday, 30 September-
Today I buzzed over to the local Giant to pick up food supplies and then spent much of the day preparing freezer-bag meals for my backpacking trip. Several years ago I had found and book-marked a web site which describes the freezer-bag technique and has interesting recipes ( www.freezerbagcooking.com/index.htm ). In short, you pre-package meals in 1-quart freezer bags and then at your campsite you merely boil water, pour it in the bag, place it in a cozy (or wrap it in spare clothing) and wait 5-10 minutes for it to re-constitute, then open and eat directly from the bag. After eating, you need only clean your spork and throw the bag into the fire or into your pack-it-out bag. The recipes are pretty simple; just add the ingredients in their proper volumes. After reading through all the recipes, I selected four breakfasts and four dinners and decided I’d just have gorp and/or power bars for lunch. I also decided to switch packs. I had loaded the ultra-light adventure pack I was hoping to use but it’s limited to 30 pounds and I was pushing that and had the pack overstuffed. I’d better go with my old tried-and-true (but heavy) backpack instead.
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Tuesday, 29 September-
Today I began preparing for a backpacking trip—gathering gear and checking it over, packing it in various combinations, and planning and preparing food. This trip was initiated in early September when my nephew called and said he and a buddy have been talking about a trip on the Appalachian Trail for the last five years but life kept intervening. But now his buddy was finishing up his Master’s degree and would finally have time to get away by the end of October. I laid out a plan for a three to four day trip to give them a taste of different aspects of the trail. I would drop them off at Wertzville Road where the AT leaves the Cumberland Valley and they would hike across Blue and Cove Mountains. While they were doing that I would drive Mocha Joe around to Duncannon and hike south to meet them somewhere on Cove Mountain and we’d spend that night at the shelter. Then we’d repeat the process—the young guys hiking the whole way, the old guy leap-frogging and hiking south to meet them here and there. That would give us lots of flexibility. If everything went well, they could just keep hiking until they ran out of time. Or if they found that section boring, they could bail out and we’d move to another area. But that all changed late this evening when I learned that life had once again intervened--- the buddy was in too much of a time crunch with the latter stages of his Master’s thesis to get away quite yet. We talked briefly about rescheduling but this week’s weather is good and my nephew had already made arrangements for time off. So we decided to go ahead but now I’d be hiking along and we’d depend on Labashi to pick us up, wherever that might be.
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Monday, 28 September-
Today I drove to our ‘local’ Cabela’s Outfitters store in Hamburg, PA and spent a few hours wandering the store. Last Spring, I bit on an offer to save $100 on boat equipment by signing up for the Cabela’s Club credit card so I get a never-ending stream of ‘special deals’. That deal was a good one and today I had a 30-percent-off-anything Club coupon burning a hole in my pocket. I bought a few items for a backpacking trip coming up this week and some gear for a camping and boating trip next Spring. On the way home I stopped in at Wildware in Harrisburg to look around and to pick up the latest section map for the Appalachian Trail section we’ll be hiking this week.
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Sunday, 27 September-
I updated the blog this morning before we went to see my brothers’ families and our new grand-niece. As you may have guessed, she’s a beauty! We spent much of the afternoon cooing over her and celebrating the miracle of a brand-new little one among us.
Eventually we had to turn the baby back over to Mom and Dad and give her some peace. We then celebrated our Mom’s 89th birthday in her room at the assisted-living home before returning to my brother’s house. Then late in the day Grampa Orat, Grand-Uncle Maypo (my little brothers!), and I went shooting at the local indoor range.
Visiting this range could become a habit. Their prices are much better than my home indoor range and the rangemaster/desk clerk is a very knowledgeable and friendly retired police officer who ‘gets it’, i.e., knows how to make us feel at home. We rented a Glock 23 with a laser sight and we had our own guns along to switch around so we managed to keep our three lanes busy. The laser sight was interesting to try but I don’t think I’d like this particular style (a Crimson Trace model) for my use. A pressure switch is built into the grip and that switch is depressed by the web area between your thumb and forefinger as you grip the weapon. That’s great if you want to use it all the time but I’d want to sometimes practice with open sights and I’m not fond of the idea of the grip add-on changing the shape and feel of the stock grip. I did like having the red dot on the target as a tool for improving sight picture and trigger control. It’s also an eye-opener to see how much the dot dances around the target and to notice the dot twitch at the critical point in the trigger pull (I’ve gotta work on that!). As far as our own equipment, we had no problems today, i.e., no jams or failures and declared the session a great success.
After our range session we rejoined the family for supper and more talk before Labashi and I headed for home late that evening.
============ end of 5 November post =======
(This post covers 27 September to 5 November, 2007)
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Monday, 5 November-
Today Labashi and I worked on crown molding for the living/dining room update. Unfortunately, my old radial arm saw isn’t a great tool for this. We can cut fine in one direction but the new crown molding is wider than the old and the saw motor conflicts with the wood stock on certain cuts. Labashi has done some amazing work using her little plastic miter box but that one doesn’t work either— again the wider molding is a problem. We spent an hour on the flat-cut method but the joints weren’t good enough—they all made a joint of less than 90 degrees—something like 87 degrees. We could probably get away with that by using a little filler upon assembly but Labashi wants it right on 90 degrees. We came up with a solution for most cuts but may run into problems if we happen to need the right (‘wrong’, that is) set of cuts.
That evening we watched a very interesting documentary, ‘My Architect: A Son’s Journey’. This film by Nathaniel Kahn tells the story of architect Louis Kahn from his illegitimate son’s point of view. Mr. Kahn was a world-famous architect and workaholic but had significant personal shortcomings. He was emotionally stunted and had a secret life in which he fathered two out-of-marriage children to two different women, both working in his office.
Nathaniel did a magnificent job of collecting footage of his father and crafting a compelling story of his search for the ‘truth’ about his Dad and what he learned along the way. Highly recommended!
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Sunday, 4 November-
After sleeping in a bit we took JustJ for a big breakfast at the local diner and then sent him on his way to visit his other uncle’s family and the new baby for a day before heading home. We declared our trip a great success. We had done 24 miles of very rocky trail and our feet were a little worse for wear but overall it had gone very well. We had good weather, learned a few things, hadn’t gotten hurt, and had met some very interesting people—what more could you ask for?
That afternoon I was changing shirts when Labashi noticed a bright red mark with a dark center on my side. It was a tick! I’ve picked off a tick or two before after hiking but this one was different. Its head was buried deep into my side and it was surrounded by a very red patch of blood under the skin. I’ve had success with the liquid-soap method of detaching a tick but it didn’t work on this one. Putting a big dab of liquid soap on the back of the tick blocks off the tick’s breathing and generally you only need wait a few minutes and then you can pick off the tick with a cotton ball or tweezers. But this one didn’t release. The tick’s body would raise up in reaction to the liquid soap but it wouldn’t let go. Labashi then tried the old hot-needle method but that also failed and in the meantime we had squeezed too far back on the body of the tick, possibly making things worse by pushing bodily fluids into the wound. We called the insurance hot line and the nurse had us pull firmly-but-gently and the tick finally came out but it wasn’t clear whether we had it all—we could see a small black mark under the skin. So that did it— I decided I’d better (and the nurse recommended) going to an emergency room. I drove in to York Hospital and after a short wait was seen by the doctor. Incredibly, York Hospital turns out to have a tick expert. He’s a recognized expert on ticks and even has a collection of them, apparently ones he has removed from patients. He instantly identified mine as a deer tick but noted it was not engorged and had not been on me long enough (most likely) to infect me with Lyme Disease. I’ve since found these very interesting links on this subject: http://www.aldf.com/deerTickEcology.shtml and http://www.aldf.com/news.shtml#SpirochetePoster . In my case they gave me a tetanus shot and a 200 mg single dose of Doxycycline and sent me on my way.
That evening we watched ‘The Fast Runner’, a truly remarkable movie from the Foreign section at our local Blockbuster. This 2002 film is an Inuit production and retells an ancient legend of a small community cursed by the visit of an evil shaman. The photography is fantastic and carried us through a few slower spots in the story-telling. The intimate view of Inuit life is unparalleled and deeply humanizing. I see RottenTomatoes ranks it in the 90’s and I heartily agree. Highly, highly recommended.
How can I find more movies like this?
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Saturday, 3 November-
Last night the temperatures were again in the low thirties. I had gotten shivery-cold in the middle of the night Thursday night in my lightweight sleeping bag so this time I donned my spare shirt, vest, gloves, and extra socks before climbing into the bag and that worked out well. We awoke around 0730 and had finished breakfast and packing when three Boy Scouts and three leaders walked into camp. They were from Troop 1 at Elizabethtown and were headed for Peter’s Mountain Shelter. We chatted awhile before we left them to their break. We had been on the protected side of the mountain at the shelter and I left in shirtsleeves but as the trail wound to the top the wind picked up quite a bit and I had to don a jacket. By lunch time we had reached the new AT bridge across 225 on Peter’s Mountain. As we continued hiking in to the shelter I saw a familiar face approaching. It seemed too great a coincidence to run into someone I know on the trail so I took a second look, and then a third— yep, it was Rabbit! This was great! Rabbit and I had hiked and camped on the further reaches of the AT-in-PA along with our buddy rar some five years ago. Today Rabbit and wifey were dayhiking and enjoying the views on this sunny day. We talked with big smiles on our faces for a few minutes and then had to move on. JustJ and I plodded on to Peter’s Mountain Shelter, reaching there in mid-afternoon. We had a late lunch and talked with two somewhat-odd thru-hikers. This was a father-son pair from Old Forge, New York who had hiked down to Valley Forge, PA and then hiked the Horseshoe Trail from there to its intersection with the AT in St. Anthony’s Wilderness. The father, now in his mid-Forties I’d say, noted he had done a similar long distance hike 20 years ago and wanted his son to see what it was like and he himself needed a break from his factory-worker/couch-potato life. His son was a recent high-school grad not sure what he wanted to do next so the time was right for a hike. They had left home in early August and were hoping to make it to Georgia. But there were some odd things about their story. Dad claimed they had hiked 60 miles on their first day so they were only able to do 9 or 10 the next day. Sixty miles? No way. On the other hand, maybe that was a mistake or I misunderstood. Maybe that was a combination of hitch-hiking and walking. These guys are not your typical thru-hikers. They are very like the hikers from the early days of the AT — dressed in everyday jeans and sweatshirts, practical, thrifty, unimpressed by technology, physically tough, a little naïve in some ways. I found it interesting that the father rolled and lit up a cigarette and spoke of the brand of rolling tobacco that lasted best on the trail (and no, it wasn’t a wacky-tobacky).
But today they were paying a penalty for their lack of technology. They were supposed to meet up with a guy bringing them supplies but have no idea where he is or when he might show. He’s already a day late and they’ve been hanging around the shelter hoping he’ll show. And there the story is a little weird too. They’re expecting him to come in from the north. That would mean a six-and-a-half mile walk including a steep climb. If he came from the south he’d be able to drive to the top and walk less than half the distance and he’d be intercepting their southward course rather than chasing behind them. Then again, maybe we didn’t understand the story or we just have the advantage of local knowledge. Their stories about the Horseshoe Trail led me to believe they really did hike it and I was happy to hear about conditions along the trial. The eastern portion of the Horseshoe has seen development to the point where they often walked between suburban homes and felt they were under the watchful and suspicious eyes of the residents. They had been checked by police a few times. The dad said he had been able to find work washing dishes or doing odd jobs on his trip 20 years ago but now everyone needed background checks and long-term commitments so they weren’t able to find work. Now that’s interesting. How many people do you run into today who are trying to do a long distance trail by picking up drudge work along the way to finance the trip?
JustJ and I were glad to be moving on and away from those guys because of the little things that didn’t add up. But the more I think about it the more I believe we were seeing back in time to an alternate way of ‘doing’ a long-distance hike. They had no freeze-dried food, no Gore-Tex, no phones or PDA-based topo maps. They are just out there enjoying life on the trail the best way they know. I wish them well.
I had talked with Labashi by cell early in the day to arrange a pickup for late this afternoon and had confirmed those arrangements before we left the shelter. JustJ and I hiked another mile to the intersection with the Victoria Trail and then a mile down to the road where we met up with Labashi at 1700. As we drove back across the Susquehanna at Duncannon toward our departure parking lot we talked about stopping somewhere for supper and it occurred to me we could introduce Labashi to the famous Doyle Hotel. Pat and Vicki were happy to see us and we had a wonderful evening in their friendly little bar telling Labashi about our adventures on the trail then picked up the cars and headed home for nice, hot showers.
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Friday, 2 November-
Today we awoke late —0830— at Cove Mountain shelter and enjoyed the sun warming us as we cooked breakfast. The night had been a good one. I woke around three and wondered who had left the lights on—the moon was so bright I didn’t need a light for my trip out to water the posies. After breakfast we filled our water bottles at the spring, packed up, and headed out. We had taken our good old time lounging around and didn’t get underway until 1100 and once again had shirt-sleeve weather. We took a break at the informal campsite above Hawk Rock and there heard hikers coming at us from both directions. Two section hikers were coming in from the south and two SOBOs (southbound thru-hikers) came up from the rock. The SOBOs were Allgood and Odysseus. They got on the trail in Maine on the first of August and are headed for Springer Mountain (Georgia) but I’d think that would be a tough schedule to keep. I didn’t catch the dayhiker’s names but they’re from the Cleveland area and are doing the trail in sections. They’ve done Maryland, West Virginia, much of Virginia, and most of Pennsylvania, as well as sections in New York, and Connecticut. They’re looking forward to Massachusetts and then the White Mountains next year. That’s incredible. It’s very impressive that people thru-hike the AT but the multi-state section hikers are also amazing.
After our break we descended to Hawk Rock and enjoyed the view before descending to Duncannon. As we walked through town we decided to have lunch at the Doyle Hotel, one of the landmarks of the AT. The Doyle is renowned and you see log entry after log entry by thru-hikers anxious to get to the Doyle or extolling their visit. Historically it has been characterized as a fleabag hotel whose claim to fame is cheap beer and hiker-sized burgers. We were welcomed by owners Pat and Vicki who really know how to welcome us. Vicki astutely pegged us as section hikers while serving drinks and Pat patiently explained the entire menu to us. We didn’t get to see a room but the bar area was nice—certainly not in the ‘fleabag’ category—and the food was plentiful and good. What a great little place!
That afternoon we plodded through Duncannon and across the Clark’s Ferry Bridge to the base of Peter’s Mountain. We made it up to Clark’s Ferry Shelter by 1700 and were happy to find we had it to ourselves. A very fit and energetic lone-wolf backpacker had passed us on the way up the mountain and we thought we’d find him at the shelter but apparently he went on to the next shelter. We only did ten miles today but was just about right for us tenderfeet. Somehow my pack worked its way up to 40 pounds and I felt every ounce of it climbing the switchbacks. After a short rest we gathered and cut firewood for the evening and decided to forego supper because of our big lunch at the Doyle. That evening we heard a screech owl, two barred owls talking back and forth, and a deer snorted very loudly nearby… apparently not impressed by the smell of the fire (or perhaps the hikers).
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Thursday, 1 November-
I spent the morning finishing up with trip prep. I met my nephew (JustJ…) in Marysville around noon and we drove west on 850 to the Appalachian Trail crossing. We had picked up subs in Marysville so ate there in the parking lot as we went over the trail map before heading out. We had a spectacular sunny day and hiked very comfortably in short sleeves (in November)! At four miles we checked in on one of my geocaches along the trail before moving on another mile to the Cove Mountain shelter for the night. We gathered firewood and had a nice fire going by dark. In preparing supper, JustJ…’s cool Jetboil stove made my little Superfly stove look silly. I was still waiting for my water to boil as he began eating. In other words, he had boiled water in the Jetboil, added it to the freeze-dried meal, waited for it to reconstitute, and was starting to eat while I was still looking at tiny little bubbles and willing them to turn into a rolling boil. Impressive!
We had an ultra-clear evening and I could see six of the Seven Sisters overhead (JustJ could see all seven). We stared into the fire, caught up on family news, and solved most of the problems of the known world—if only they’d listen to us.
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Wednesday, 30 September-
Today I buzzed over to the local Giant to pick up food supplies and then spent much of the day preparing freezer-bag meals for my backpacking trip. Several years ago I had found and book-marked a web site which describes the freezer-bag technique and has interesting recipes ( www.freezerbagcooking.com/index.htm ). In short, you pre-package meals in 1-quart freezer bags and then at your campsite you merely boil water, pour it in the bag, place it in a cozy (or wrap it in spare clothing) and wait 5-10 minutes for it to re-constitute, then open and eat directly from the bag. After eating, you need only clean your spork and throw the bag into the fire or into your pack-it-out bag. The recipes are pretty simple; just add the ingredients in their proper volumes. After reading through all the recipes, I selected four breakfasts and four dinners and decided I’d just have gorp and/or power bars for lunch. I also decided to switch packs. I had loaded the ultra-light adventure pack I was hoping to use but it’s limited to 30 pounds and I was pushing that and had the pack overstuffed. I’d better go with my old tried-and-true (but heavy) backpack instead.
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Tuesday, 29 September-
Today I began preparing for a backpacking trip—gathering gear and checking it over, packing it in various combinations, and planning and preparing food. This trip was initiated in early September when my nephew called and said he and a buddy have been talking about a trip on the Appalachian Trail for the last five years but life kept intervening. But now his buddy was finishing up his Master’s degree and would finally have time to get away by the end of October. I laid out a plan for a three to four day trip to give them a taste of different aspects of the trail. I would drop them off at Wertzville Road where the AT leaves the Cumberland Valley and they would hike across Blue and Cove Mountains. While they were doing that I would drive Mocha Joe around to Duncannon and hike south to meet them somewhere on Cove Mountain and we’d spend that night at the shelter. Then we’d repeat the process—the young guys hiking the whole way, the old guy leap-frogging and hiking south to meet them here and there. That would give us lots of flexibility. If everything went well, they could just keep hiking until they ran out of time. Or if they found that section boring, they could bail out and we’d move to another area. But that all changed late this evening when I learned that life had once again intervened--- the buddy was in too much of a time crunch with the latter stages of his Master’s thesis to get away quite yet. We talked briefly about rescheduling but this week’s weather is good and my nephew had already made arrangements for time off. So we decided to go ahead but now I’d be hiking along and we’d depend on Labashi to pick us up, wherever that might be.
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Monday, 28 September-
Today I drove to our ‘local’ Cabela’s Outfitters store in Hamburg, PA and spent a few hours wandering the store. Last Spring, I bit on an offer to save $100 on boat equipment by signing up for the Cabela’s Club credit card so I get a never-ending stream of ‘special deals’. That deal was a good one and today I had a 30-percent-off-anything Club coupon burning a hole in my pocket. I bought a few items for a backpacking trip coming up this week and some gear for a camping and boating trip next Spring. On the way home I stopped in at Wildware in Harrisburg to look around and to pick up the latest section map for the Appalachian Trail section we’ll be hiking this week.
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Sunday, 27 September-
I updated the blog this morning before we went to see my brothers’ families and our new grand-niece. As you may have guessed, she’s a beauty! We spent much of the afternoon cooing over her and celebrating the miracle of a brand-new little one among us.
Eventually we had to turn the baby back over to Mom and Dad and give her some peace. We then celebrated our Mom’s 89th birthday in her room at the assisted-living home before returning to my brother’s house. Then late in the day Grampa Orat, Grand-Uncle Maypo (my little brothers!), and I went shooting at the local indoor range.
Visiting this range could become a habit. Their prices are much better than my home indoor range and the rangemaster/desk clerk is a very knowledgeable and friendly retired police officer who ‘gets it’, i.e., knows how to make us feel at home. We rented a Glock 23 with a laser sight and we had our own guns along to switch around so we managed to keep our three lanes busy. The laser sight was interesting to try but I don’t think I’d like this particular style (a Crimson Trace model) for my use. A pressure switch is built into the grip and that switch is depressed by the web area between your thumb and forefinger as you grip the weapon. That’s great if you want to use it all the time but I’d want to sometimes practice with open sights and I’m not fond of the idea of the grip add-on changing the shape and feel of the stock grip. I did like having the red dot on the target as a tool for improving sight picture and trigger control. It’s also an eye-opener to see how much the dot dances around the target and to notice the dot twitch at the critical point in the trigger pull (I’ve gotta work on that!). As far as our own equipment, we had no problems today, i.e., no jams or failures and declared the session a great success.
After our range session we rejoined the family for supper and more talk before Labashi and I headed for home late that evening.
============ end of 5 November post =======
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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