Hi everyone! It's Jared and Maribeth reporting in from Duncannon, PA. We've hit quite a few milestones this week: passing the 1,000 mile mark, conquering the never-ending state of Virginia, Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, Maryland, crossing the Mason-Dixon line (we're out of the South!), making the official AT halfway point, and passing the 1,100 mile mark. But let's back up a little bit....
leaving Virginia and entering Harper's Ferry, WV
After posting at the Bear's Den hostel, we hiked the following day (in a cold, pouring rain) to Harper's Ferry, WV. Like we mentioned before, it is considered the psychological halfway point for most hikers. The town is home of the ATC, or Appalachian Trail Conservancy. All thru-hikers check in at the ATC headquarters and get their picture taken (pic at left), and are recorded as "having made it this far". It's a great feeling. The town of Harper's Ferry is also very cool in and of itself. It is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, which made it a hotly contested prize during the civil war. I really wish we could've spent more time here to appreciate the history a little more.
We arrived at around 7pm, cold, wet and hungry. We had heard that a new hiker hostel had opened up right near the outfitter, but were dismayed to find it still under construction. The owner of the place, Karen, saw us milling around outside and took some pity on us. She allowed us to stay in one of the upstairs bunkrooms as long as we assured her over and over again that we wouldn't sue her for stepping on nails, or tripping over the lumber. Things worked out amazingly the next day also...a former thru-hiker, Bonzo, was hired to paint the hostel-to-be. He invited us back to his home, where we got a good night's rest, a shower, and did some laundry. Another wonderful random act of kindness on the AT.
Maryland
The next day we said goodbye to Bonzo and crossed the border into Maryland. The terrain is a lot milder than what we encountered in the previous states, as we are now in the "mid-Atlantic lowlands". The AT in Maryland takes you through several state parks, centered around the area's Civil War history. I'll admit that I've forgotton all of my 7th grade Civil War education, but we couldn't help but feel solemn and awestruck to walk across the old battlegrounds. I shutter to think what the scene looked like in the early 1860s. MD is a pretty short state in the scheme of things...only ~40 miles of trail cross through the state. In fact, some hikers attempt the "4 state challenge", touching down in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania all in one day (40+ miles). We're not those kind of hikers though, preferring to stop and smell the roses a little more. The border between Maryland and Pennsylvania marks the historic "Mason-Dixon" line. We smiled when we stepped over into more familiar territory.
Pennsylvania
Which brings us to our current challenge...making it through Pennsylvania. After only five minutes of being in the state, we ran into some locals dumping some trash near the trail, then seeing us, they hopped into their truck and roared off. Not a great first impression of the state. But my opinion of the state has warmed a bit after walking through the trail town of Boiling Springs, the Cumberland River valley, and now Duncannon. We also passed the "official" marker for the halfway point, just north of Pine Grove Furnace state park. The actual halfway point changes from year to year due to reroutes and trail additions (the AT is longer than ever before, now at 2,176 miles)...but we stopped to take pictures next to the outdated marker anyway. Pine Grove Furnace state park is home of the "half gallon challenge", encouraging the thru-hikers to eat a half gallon of ice cream as fast as possible. Bonzo warned us "if you do the challenge, take some extra toilet paper with you." So we decided not to participate.
PA is probably the most disliked by all thru-hikers. It doesn't have a difficult elevation profile or anything, but its notorious rocks make walking pretty trecherous. We haven't hit the bad stuff yet, but give us another week and I'm sure we'll be bitching about PA just like everybody else.
Tonight we're staying at The Doyle, a well-known hostel created by Anheuser-Busch. Cold beer on a hot day, in the company of good people...one of life's greatest pleasures. We'll probably write again from Port Clinton, PA.
much love,
Dirty Blonde (you know who)
Hi Everyone,
As of 5/17/07 we are at Bears Den Hostel ("a little castle in the woods") at mile marker 988.9. Mb and I mowed the grass at the place and we got the hiker special which includes bed, shower, laundry, pizza, and a pint of Ben and Jerry's free of charge. I am pleasantly full as I write this. Tomorrow is a milestone day. We will cross the 1000 mile mark, finish Virginia (the longest state on the trail @ 550 miles), and make in Harper's Ferry the psychological halfway point of the trail (the real halfway point is at mile 1087 at Pine Grove Funace State Park in Pennsylvania). Today we walked the infamous "roller coaster", relentlessly climbing up and down small ridges on rocky trail. We were getting soft after leaving Shenandoah National Park, where the terrain was a "magic carpet ride" along a semi-flat ridges and we could buy milkshakes and beer along the trail at one of the many waysides. Overall Shenandoah was a mediocre park. The views were hazy, we crossed Skyline drive once every two miles, and the forest was ravaged by a recent icestorm. Shenandoah is geared more for the automobile than the hiker. That said, we were easily able to walk more than 20 miles a day. After leaving the Shenadoah we treated ourselves to a desert and a drink in Front Royal, VA.
Whoever said "Virginia is flat" or "it's all downhill" was lying. Before entering Shenandoah we had 5 days worth of 2500+ ft climbs and descents, culminating in Priest/Three Ridges wilderness. On this day we did a two 800 ft climbs in the morning descended 3000 feet off of the Priest and then went right back up 3000 ft up the craggy Three Ridges Mountain. It was definately worth the extra effort at the end of the day to walk the 2.5 miles off the trail down the to Rusty's Hardtime Hollow, a legendary AT hostel. Rusty's is a shrine to the AT. He takes your picture on his polaroid camera and staples it to the ceiling with all of the the other thru-hikers from the past 20 years. There are signs all over his property laying down the rules and espousing his views on the AT. My favorite sign was "Please no water battles in the kitchen because of the lights." Rusty has a fun spirit. He challeged us to hit empty soda cans past a target for free ice cream and then dumped out the cans on the driveway and ran them over with his tractor with Creedence blaring in the background. He droves us back to the trailhead in a souped up pickup truck, and we were smiling for the whole day after.
We are sad to be missing Trail Days in Damascus, VA. We are sorry we missed many of our fellow thru-hikers who are hitching a ride south to attend. We decided not to go because we are just getting up to our desired average milage of 14.1 mpd to finish the trail in five months and we did not want to be pressured to hike really hard to make up the four days we would have taken off. So we plod forward into W. Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the land of rocks. We've walked far but we're not even halfway there yet. So much more to see.
Onward!
Backbend
Hello all,
Mileage: ~770
We're taking a little pit stop in Glasgow, VA for the night to shower and give the ol' feet a rest. Our last entry from Pearisberg seems like forever ago. The weather has been wacky lately: we left Pearisberg in the rain, which gave way to a blistering heat wave, followed by a sudden cold snap (yesterday) with more rain. We had to pay careful attention as to where our water sources were during this heat wave....some were over 10 miles apart from one another!
We've been hiking with a great group of people for the past 1.5 weeks (Snackbreak, Iceman Dan, and Mo' lassis). Hopefully we can stick with this crew until Wayesboro, 5 days from now. The past week has given us some of the most memorable sights in all of VA: Dragon's Tooth, McAffee's Knob, and Tinker Cliffs...all with excellent views of the valley below. McAffee's Knob was especially cool because we planned on arriving there just before sunset. Jared hiked in a bottle of wine just for the occasion. We spent the night watching a spectacular sunset over the cliffs, laughing with new friends...and just to the northeast, we saw the city lights of Roanoke glowing. It was one of my favorite nights so far.
My feet started bothering me again last night, especially on the downhill. I'm going to try doing the same thing I did last time...hopefully that will help.
much love,
maribeth, dirty blonde
