With the intended destination of Harper’s Ferry, we were up early today. Bear Bell made us some pancakes, which was part of the deal at the hostel. By the time we were cleaning up, most of the other hikers were up and waiting their turn to make pancakes.
We finished the rest of the rollercoaster section of the trail which really wasn’t too bad. This was yet another section of trail that ended up not being as bad as others had warned us. In fact, the rollercoaster section kept things interesting. In any case, we pretty easily finished it up. The rest of the trail was very nice after that, except for a few very rocky sections. At one point, I did get a bit of a surprise as I was heading down some stone steps right before the David Lesser shelter. As I stepped onto one of the rocks, a timber rattler popped out and gave me a quick warning rattle. I immediately jumped back, and it calmed right down, then kind of just slithered back into the rocks.
We spent a bit of time at the shelter eating some lunch, and a bit of extra time because it started raining… hard. For about 15 minutes it poured, and there was thunder and lightning. It was nice to be protected under the shelter. When it lightened up we took off, but it didn’t take long for the rain to start again, and we were hiking through a trail transformed into a stream. We really didn’t mind though, because we were on our way to town.
We hiked the last 8 miles under some rain, and threat of rain, but we made it to Harper’s Ferry by 5pm. We checked into the Econolodge, which is just up the street from the trail, then we headed up over the hill for the 1 mile walk into the historic district to find food.
Harper’s Ferry is a very quaint little historic town located at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. There’s a big hill in the middle, so there’s quite a bit of walking up and down hill as you head in and out of the historic downtown. When we got down there, we were a little surprised to find that there were not a lot of places open past 7pm on a Tuesday night. We ended up walking back up the hill towards the hotel to go to a pizza place… Mena’s Pizzaria. It hit the spot, with a salad, garlic knots, and a 7 topping pizza.
To round out the night we grabbed a six pack on the way back to the hotel, and just relaxed. We’ll be zeroing tomorrow and exploring the town and seeing some of the sights, as well as visiting the ATC headquarters.
We ate at Mena’s last month when we took our BSA troop up to Harpers Ferry to bike the C&O canal. Too bad the pub burned down, I’m sure there’ll be others.
She is an expert pancake chef !