Day 6: The half gallon challenge!

It's a thru hiker tradition to eat a half gallon of ice cream at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in southern Pa. to commemorate reaching the halfway point of the AT.

Originally, I was going to do the half-half gallon challenge, and some people suggested I do my half gallon challenge at the top of Mount Katahdin, but I went for the whole thing.

I raced Trigger, an MIT student from Oklahoma who is thru hiking at a brisk pace.















I lost the race. He had a weak plastic spoon while I used my camp spork, so he started slow. But he ended up finishing in less than 15 minutes while I took nearly an hour. My ice cream choice - limited edition fried ice cream flavor - worked against me [it was like 25 percent sugary goo]. At least I didn't throw up, which I heard someone else did earlier that day.

I followed up the ice cream glut with a cheeseburger [hey, it was a big day] and a swim in the lake plus a hot shower.

I caught up and camped with a huge group of hikers that were in the ATC building in Harper's Ferry when I started my hike and camping with them. I used my tarp and used a tree root+dirty laundry sack as a pillow and actually slept better than I had in days.