Day 126, Sunday, June 17. Peters Mountain Shelter—10.9 miles

First off, Happy Fathers Day to our dads, Hal and Bill. They are both in their 80s and going strong. 

It was great to be able to sleep in.  Bunny woke me up and told me it was 7:15. I ignored her hoping she would go back to sleep. It worked. An hour later I checked the clock and it was only 6:20. I asked her what the hell she was talking about. She claimed ignorance and claimed I had been dreaming if I heard her say anything earlier. Apparently, Bunny has taken up sleep talking in attempt to mess with me. 

When we did get up and get ready, we went across the street to Goodies for breakfast. As soon as we sat down, Ed came in and joined us.  After his fall yesterday, he has decided to get off the trail. Bunny and I disagree with what we heard him say he was going to do. I thought he was going to hike some less hilly/rocky trail, but she heard him say he was jumping ahead and skipping the rest of PA.

Ed did tell us he is a bit of a historian. He has reviewed the original journals of Earle Schaffer and has concluded that Earle didn’t actually hike the entire trail in ‘47 which is his claim to fame as being the first thru-hiker. This was collaborated by other researchers. (I don’t think Ed developed this theory, just collaborated other research.). There were actually 6 Boy Scouts that hiked the trail in the late ‘30s trying to raise interest in Boy Scouts. They weren’t in it for the personal glory so they didn’t push their accomplishments at the time. This was almost an entire decade before Earle claimed to have done his first hike. 

When we had crossed the street to go eat, it was perfect hiking weather—cool and overcast. We decided that if we took our time getting out of town, we could avoid the great weather and get the high heat and humidity we had been promised for today. We started hiking at 11; mission accomplished. 

Duncannon was a much bigger dying town than we had realized. It seemed to never end as we walked through town. We had to cross two rivers to get out of town. The bridge across the Susquehanna River was covered in huge spiders. I’ll bet there must have been close to a ton of spiders, webs, and caught bugs hanging on the rails. I started touching webs as I passed to agitate the spiders. I hope they don’t have a great communication network or I’m going to be overrun tonight.  

We only had around 1000’ of climbing to get up on the ridge, but it took its toll on us.  I thought we had slept fairly well last night, had 3 town meals, and gotten rehydrated. The only explanation must be that a) Bunny is putting rocks in my pack to try and slow me down, or b) the heat was having an effect on us.

The original plan had been to get in 18 miles today but we quickly decided to shoot for the second shelter instead. Once we were up on the ridge, the walking wasn’t bad. There were a few rocks in the trail, but not the nightmare scenario that PA has been painted to be. Just like the Doyle wasn’t as bad as the stories of it have grown to be. 

We stopped at the first shelter to rehydrate. I drank 2 liters of water which I used to mark my territory all the way to the next shelter. It’s always a good idea to let bears know who is in the area.  There were a few views of the river valleys on either side of the trail. I would like to understand a little more of the forces that created these long, narrow mountains we are walking on.  We are walking on a pretty level ridge about 50’ wide on top. The mountains in this area are nothing like the individual peaks we encountered in GA and NC. 

The shelter already had 3 tents set up beside it by the time we arrived at 6:30. For once, we were able to get everything done while it was still light. The only bad thing about this shelter is the water source. There’s a sign in front of the shelter saying 300 steps to the spring. I interpreted that to mean 150 paces. They meant steps as in stair steps.  I carried 7 liters of water up and counted the steps. I got 294.  Close enough because anything more than 50 sucks. 

EFG