Day 4: Pen Mar Park and Trail Magic

Pen Mar Park, situated at the northern end of Maryland and tucked just inside Washington County, was once the "Coney Island of the Blue Ridge" and attracted half a million people per year taking excursions on the Western Maryland Railroad. Its heyday was 1877 until it was dismantled overnight in 1943 [history here].

Now the park mostly plays hosts to hikers passing through, reunions, picnics and, as it did when I breezed through at 2 p.m. on June 13, wedding receptions.

A stretch limousine pulled up and idled on a drive between between my picnic table and a pavilion overlooking the West from a hill. The driver stood by the engine, smoking a cigarrette in his white gloves.

A red carpet from the back seat of the limo ended at a wooden sign that said, "Appalachian Trail, Main 1,080 miles -> Georgia 920 miles <-".

I hiked 12 miles on the day, crossing the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania, and arrived at Antietam Shelter in the evening. I started seeing little yellow slips of paper that said something about food for thru hikers, breakfast, lunch and dinner, just up the trail. I was dying of heat, and the babbling creek under the bridge called my name. The shelter turned out to be right off the trail and next to the water, so it was too good to pass up, even though I originally intended to push on. After a fast creek bath, I put on my finest and headed up to a pavilion where Snooze and Pokie, along with about 10 other people I didn't recognize, were having an all-out picnic.

Pootz and M & M, a couple who met on the trail while thru hiking in 2007, were serving up some serious trail magic: Hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, cookies, bananas, strawberries, apples, beer, soda and Gatorade. They had driven 3 hours down from Lockhaven, Pa. to feed us. Everybody went to town and took the party back to the shelter with a sack of Yeunglings.

From left: Pokie, Snooze, Pootz, me, Kogito [New England native hiking incredibly fast].

Day 3: Testing out the tarp system

In the morning I stuck around The Free State [see below] doing laundry and internets and repacking my pack until I was the last hiker there. Janel, the co-owner of the hostel, gave me a ride to the Smithsburg post office, 2.4 miles away, where I mailed home more than 2 pounds of stuff.

After lunch [Reuben, popsicle, soda] at the Smithsburg Market, I picked up some new and very necessary supplies at the pharmacy. I got Zeasorb powder [think Gold Bond] and some zinc oxide ointment to fight my worst enemy in my early hiking days: chafing. Since then, I've been powdering up every morning, and I've noticed I'm not the only guy on the trail who starts his day with a shot of powder down his shorts. The powder is also good for keeping my feet dry, and the ointment also works on poison ivy.

I hiked the AT 5.1 miles to the Devil's Racecourse shelter, which sat derelict at the bottom of a beast of a steep decline. Only one other guy was there, but another two - Thumper and Solar Speck, two section hikers - soon arrived. Those guys and I went back up to the trail. An Asian guy who didn't speak any English asked "Shelter?" and, upon seeing me nod, headed down.

Snooze and Pokie, two girls thru-hiking north, set up a tent, made up a fire and invited everyone over. My nightcap was instant coffee heated over my butane Primus stove. After all that, I slept fitfully in my very exposed tarp tent because of bear paranoia, clutching pocket knife and flashlight in hand.

Next up

What is sore today: Chafeable areas, calves, collar bones and hips. It will be a short hike today, which means I won't be crossing the Mason - Dixon Line until tomorrow. But I'm completely recharged.

Off to repack and try to cut out some weight.

-jh

p.s. gear status: I wish I had more soccer shorts and less convertible hiking pants.

Photo dump

Spooky section of the AT in Maryland, June 11.

Me at the top of the Washington Monument, elev. circa 1,535 ft., June 11.

My picture in the 2009 album at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The blue number means I'm a section hiker. Thru hikers are red, flip floppers are brown. Note the lack of a trail name, a deficiency that plagues me still.

Days 2 and 1

Ahhh, internets. How I thirsted for thee.

I'm hanging out in the hostel at the end of the world, aka the The Free State hikers hostel, near Smithsburg, Md. A 2006 thru-hiker who walked to raise money for a free clinic in Hagerstown started it when he got back from Maine, and it is worth every inch of the 18 miles I racewalked here for, and the $32 fee. I've already housed a Coke, two Gatorades and a shower, and tomorrow I will turn my pillow made of dirty laundry into clean clothes.

If you think walking the Appalachian Trail is ruffin' it, it isn't. I've taken three showers so far - the first one was by mountain spring by night, but the next two were the real deal. Public faucets and restrooms abound, at least in the 3/4s of Maryland I've hiked. 

- Day 2 summary:

• Miles hiked: 18, from Rocky Run Shelter to The Free State hostel.
• conditions: jungle-like. No sun, but the fog rolling up over the rocks was beautiful. Anything that gets wet stays wet because of the humidity.
• Points of interest [POIs]: Reno Monument, which is a Civil War battlefield where like 30 guys died; the Washington Monument, which is like a European castle tower but in Maryland, and Annapolis Rocks, which are rocks from which you can see far.
• how's the hike?: the Maryland section is paradise except for a few places. One is the Weverton Cliffs climb, one is the Crampton Gap climb and one is the climb to the Annapolis Rocks. There's also a section between the rocks and here where the trail is nigh impassable because of a proliferation of little boulders. Whenever I see thru hikers from Georgia, they vanish almost instantaneously because they go twice as fast. I'll get there.
• Met: Like five people here who went to sleep half an hour ago; L Train and Andy, who were hanging out at the Dahlgren campsite [the free hot showers place where everybody goes] and a white-haired thru hiker who was similarly perplexed at the soda machines at the Washington Monument and then sped like a phantom down the trail.

- Day 1 summary:

• Miles hiked: 16, from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harper's Ferry to Rocky Run Shelter.
• In Harper's Ferry, 11 a.m. means they turn off whatever machines they use to make breakfast with and turn on the lunch ones. No brunches. Nein! So my "power breakfast" ended up being an expensive fish n' chips. It wasn't bad, though.
  
• I thought about crashing at the Ed Garvey shelter, but it was 3 p.m. and didn't think I could take seven more hours of being a shelter rat.
• I encountered my first southbounder, my first non-working soda machines and my first head cloud of gnats at Gathland State Park.
• I thought about crashing at the Crampton Gap shelter, but it was quiet. Too quiet.
• I shared a shelter at Rocky Run with Early Bear, a northbounder so named because he encountered his first bear three days out from Springer Mountain, Ga. [the starting point]. He had a bag hanging from a branch 30+ feet in the air. I asked him what it was for. "It's my bear bag," he said. There's not much irony on the trail.
• Also met: Samwise and Squeegee, a pseudo Boy Scouts club made up of teens from Cleveland.
• POIs: Harper's Ferry National Historical Park, the Civil War Correspondents Arch.

My bunk awaits...

Welcome to the People's Republic of Walk

This blog borrows a bit from the soccablog I blog for. Instead of blogging for that blog all summer, I will blog here. Sometimes I will blog there. 

Anywho, I'm nervous about making the first post. I've never posted post No. 1 before. 

So I'll first write up the day, and then drop some tidbits.

I've just returned from the downtown Frederick post office, where I lugged in a huge Yeungling box full of town clothes, toiletries and electronics chargers. Apparently you're not allowed to send alcohol boxes through the mail. We got me sorted out, though. 

My bounce box will be waiting for me in Boiling Springs, Pa., which will be 100 miles from my starting point in Harper's Ferry, so I should be getting there in like 10 days. The PO is on the trail. I figure I'll be ready to shave and deodor myself by then and have a bit of a look around. As I wrote to my gramps this morning, it'll be my first thing to look forward to :)

• Response-to-section-hike-idea of the day: "What made you want to do that?" 
• Things to make one think: Whiteblaze.net contributors recommend packing two extra pairs of socks, one extra pair of underwear and like one shirt/pants outfit. I have like five pairs of socks [and four pairs of liners], three shirts, two pants and five underwears. I may be back at a PO sooner than I thought with a package bound for home.
• Fear and Loathing on the AT: Whiteblaze also has an article on how to fend off lightning [!].

Sample: 

AVOID: Avoid water. Avoid all metallic objects. Avoid the high ground. Avoid solitary tall trees. Avoid close contact with others - spread out 15-20 ft. apart. Avoid contact with dissimilar objects (water & land; boat & land; rock & ground; tree & ground). Avoid open spaces.

SEEK:Seek clumps of shrubs or trees of uniform height. Seek ditches, trenches or the low ground. Seek a low, crouching position with feet together with hands on ears to minimize acoujstic shock from thunder.

The article goes on to say this, under a section headlined "Medical treatment and symptoms":

"Treat the apparently dead first."

The trip starts tomorrow. It's blue and white-hot outside right now, but weather.com predicts isolated T-storms tonight. The journey to Maine begins!

-jh