We didn’t have to travel far this morning to hit a major trail milestone… the official halfway point between Georgia and Maine. That means at that that point we’d walked 1094.55 miles from Springer mountain, and we’ve got exactly that many miles to Kathadin. Of course we didn’t stop there for the day, that was only 3 miles in for the day… we had to make it down to Pine Grove Furnace State Park and get some ice cream.
On the way down, we happened across a bit of pretty unique trail magic just before we hit the Tom’s Run Shelter. Just sitting in the stream were a bunch of 32oz Gatorades. There were so many, it must’ve taken some effort to haul all those up there. I’m sure there were many excited hikers to come across those today.
We reached Pine Grove Furnace State Park by 10:30 am, and there was already a good group of hikers there with their ice cream attempting the famous half gallon challenge. As promised, I’ll explain. The half gallon challenge is just as it sounds… the hiker eats a half gallon of ice cream. You don’t get a t-shirt, or your picture on the wall. You even have to pay for all the ice cream you eat. The only prize is bragging rights, and a small wooden spoon with the words “half gal club” printed on it. They’ve broken it up into two phases now. First you buy a 1.75 quart tub of ice cream. Once you finish that, you buy the final pint to complete the half gallon.
We didn’t fully participate in the challenge, but we did split a 1.75 quart tub of moose tracks, a breakfast sandwich, and a bunch of fries. The ice cream went down surprisingly easily, even with all that other food, it almost felt like we could’ve done the challenge. We felt like it would’ve been a poor choice, mainly because we still had quite a few miles we wanted to get in fire for the day. After ice cream and food we relaxed for a bit, watched a few other hikers complete the challenge, and checked out the AT museum at the park, which was pretty interesting.
About 9 miles after Pine Grove Furnace, we took another little detour up to Green Mountain General store, which was just under .2 miles off the trail on PA Route 34. This place was great. We got some really good, filling sandwiches, cold drinks, and a few candy bars. They even had a hiker box that someone put a bunch more candy bars in, so we were able to get a little something for after dinner. We took a nice little break there before moving on.
The rest of the hike got pretty interesting after that. The trail took us up over some pretty challenging rocks at the top of a ridge. It was another one of those almost pointless routes, as the trail could’ve just stayed below the ridge on the flatter section of the hill, but no… that wouldn’t have been interesting enough. There was even one spot where you could’ve just walked around a rock, but the trail markers send you through a little rock formation, only to emerge pretty much right where you left off.
We ended the day doing 25 miles, stopping just short of the Alex Kennedy shelter. It was a good day, and the miles went by pretty quickly. I think we even somehow skirted some weather. Here’s hoping we can keep that luck up the rest of the week.
You guys are awesome ! and deserve all the ice cream your heart desires.