Dayhike: Windsor Furnace to Port Clinton, Pa.

To kick off the 5.5-week countdown to the point where I begin the southern half of the Appalachian Trail, I planned to do an overnight hike from Windsor Furnace to Pa. Rte. 309, in central Pennsylvania, this past weekend.

Then a blast of Arctic pain arrived. The forecast for the overnight temperature for Saturday, Jan. 30 called for 15 degrees F but feeling something like 5 degrees. My sleeping bag is rated at 20 degrees: No go. I know what it feels like to shiver in a shelter so violently that sleep becomes impossible, and I didn't fancy such a night in Eckville shelter, where I planned to stay.

I also wanted to be cautious because, this time, I was planning a hike for two.

My gf, Ashley, and I turned the overnight hike into a day hike. Instead of hiking 15 miles north from the Hamburg reservoir/Windsor Furnace, we would hike 6.5 miles south, to Port Clinton.














[Ashley! Heading south to Port Clinton on the AT.]

Readers of this blog will know Ashley from when I hit Palmerton, Pa. in late June, and then Rutland, Vermont in late July :) You'll probably be seeing more of her here, btw, because we're serious now.

So we'd avoid the 15 degree death chill by not spending the night outside. But we still needed to bundle up in warm-warms in the face of a 20-degrees-and-overcast, January day.














[Me, sign marking the AT near Windsor Furnace, 965.7 miles from Mt. Katahdin, Jan. 30, 2010. Rocking the camo pants.]

We started at about 1 p.m. I anticipated the hike taking 3 hours, with a glorious entrance to Port Clinton - a town I have fond memories of from the summer - ahead of the early sunset and with a hot sandwich and a huge, "small" fries and cold lagers waiting for us at the Port Clinton Hotel. Here is my post on my previous Port Clinton experience.

It was a tad surreal setting foot on the trail again, headed in the wrong direction, with no leaves on the trees.

Winter gripped even the water sources in his frosty hands:














The hiking went swimmingly easy. The ups were brief. The ridge blocked the wind from the west for most of the trail. All in all, it was a refreshing day.

The hotel was as hiker-friendly as I remember it. Afterwards we made a requisite stop at the Port Clinton Peanut Shop, one of the very few candy-specific stores along the trail.














[Ashley, caught a millisecond after ordering, Port Clinton Peanut Shop.]

Stay tuned...