So far, Pennsylvania is pretty good, except for a few tough, rocky, almost pointless sections of trail that climb up to a ridge just to put you over a bunch of big rocks for a quarter mile, then drops back down to just below the ridge. Yes, they’re that annoying, and yes we encountered more than just one piece of trail that did that very thing.
However, other than those sections, the trail is pretty good. We passed through two state parks today, meaning we could get water without filtering, use restrooms, and get rid of garbage. These are all luxuries that we’d be lucky to get just once in a day. Another bonus for today was the awesome trail magic at Caledonia State Park. It was put on jointly by the 7th Day Adventist church out of Maryland, and the PATC group from Waynesboro, PA. The unique thing about this trail magic was that it was all vegetarian food, so not your typical burgers and dogs. There was grilled corn, potatoes, pineapple, peppers and onions. They had lots of fresh fruit and veggies. Homemade cookies, and plenty of cold drinks. We really enjoyed ourselves there, chatting with the people who had so kindly taken their Sunday to share a cornucopia of fresh tasty food with a bunch of hikers. I’m still so amazed at the generosity people continue to show us as we head north.
As difficult as it was to leave the trail magic, we soon hit one of the nicest shelters on the trail. About 2 miles north of Caledonia State Park lie the Quarry Gap Shelters. The caretaker of the shelters is a guy named Jim, and he has taken some pride in his shelter. The place was beautiful, and clean. He had hanging flower pots around the overhang of the shelter. There was even a bench swing and a few games near the covered picnic table for hikers to pass the time. Honestly, this place was nicer than at least once hostel that we’ve paid to stay in. We had a hard time moving on from this place, but it was still a bit too early for us to stop.
We ended up going about 7.5 more miles to Birch Run Shelter, for a total of 23.2 miles today. We’re only about 3 miles away from the official halfway point of the AT, and about 10 miles from Pine Grove Furnace State Park, where we can get some ice cream (I’ll explain the half-gallon challenge in tomorrow’s post).
