AT hiking in Rocksylvania

The beginning.

This Saturday my dad, brother and I did our yearly section hike of a portion of the PA section of the Appalachian trail.  This is our 4th year and we traveled southbound from Smith Gap Road to Hwy 309 and stayed overnight at the George Outerbridge Shelter.

A scenic detour around a closed part of the trail

My sister-in-law Dani drove us up to the start point and we got moving right around 9.  It was a bit chilly just standing around but shorts and a t-shirt sufficed when moving.  Given the poor forecast for the weekend (highs in the low 50s and rainy), we were surprised at the number of other day/weekend hikers we saw out on the trails. This year we actually hiked some noticeably different terrain when we were forced to take a detour around a section of trail closed for maintenance.  The detour passed through a field of tall, tan field grass of some sort - it was quite striking.  Then we proceeded to hike along a firetrail that ran parallel to the crest of the ridge a hundred or so feet down the side.  This was pretty easy hiking as it was all grass and lacked the rocky character that is pretty typical of all the PA hiking that we've done so far. Heading down Blue Mt. to Lehigh Gap (about three quarters of a mile from the shelter) was quite an adventure. We had to clamber down a seemingly sheer cliff of rocks and boulders while the wind was blowing furiously and it had started to sprinkle! After a pretty much rain free Saturday hike of around 14 miles we walked up to the shelter at about 5PM and found that a couple from Philadelphia weekend hiking had pitched a tent next to the shelter and two through hikers had made camp for the evening in one half of the shelter. One of the hikers had gotten a late start (May) so had hiked north to Harper's Ferry, then flew up to Maine to hike southbound to finish up (Mt. Katahdin, the northern terminus, closes during the winter).  The other just got a really late start and said he thinks he will finish up in December sometime down in Georgia. While we ate and got ready for bed we chatted for a while with them and heard some interesting stories about their journey before going to sleep around 8PM.

I look more miserable than I actually was.

It rained quite heavily Saturday night but luckily it cleared up by the time we woke up and we hit the trail by around 8AM.  It rained off and on throughout most of the day and quite heavily at times.  We ended up 'hiking' the Knife's Edge during one of the heavier downfalls which was quite exciting.  This was another section of broken rocks seemingly placed at random in a large portion forest.  Why the AT cannot just route around these pace upsetting and potentially dangerous sections for an easier forest route is a still a question to me.  Clambering over giant boulders with plenty of places to slip and break or twist something makes for in interesting and memorable if somewhat slow going experience...  That came towards the end of the day and the closing miles were on some easy firetrail which allowed us to make good time.  My mom picked us all up around 4:30 and we drove back to my brother's place in Coatesville where Dani had made a warm and delicious chili served with cookies for dessert.  I believe we covered around 15 miles on Sunday.

The skies parted for long enough to eat lunch and remove our jackets

Wearing actual hiking boots this year - even cheap sub $30 ones from Walmart - were defintely an upgrade compared to my light weight running shoes that I had worn in the past.  Although the soles were much stiffer, they can only do so much when walking on pointy, jagged rocks for large swathes of the the trail.  My feet were quite sore by the end of the weekend although I escaped without any real blisters.  The fact that I bike everywhere instead of walking probably has not helped toughen the soles of my feet up for back to back 8+ hour days of hiking.  The mileage I've done that weekend was probably equal to the cumulative mileage I've walked since I hiked another section of the AT down in Maryland with some friends back in June...

The end of another good hiking trip.

Up next, my annual bike trip up to NYC with friends.  Some familiar faces won't be there this year, but some new ones will be joining us!