People Coming, People Going (May 6-22, 2011)

"Pretty sad morning, my hiking partner I met on Springer is gone." Youngin', 5/7/11, 501 Shelter

"Felt stronger this year for some reason but had more trouble with that thing between the ears." Anonymous, 4/26/11, Eagle's Nest Shelter

Rock Puncher (left) and Bear Jew (May 9, 2011)

When we strolled into the hostel in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia we were pretty much all
together. There was Sensei, Spam, Storm Song, Treebeard, Stillwater, Niners, Ghost, the Corsican and Kathmandu. Harper's Ferry is a beautiful place but it's not exactly a town to bum around in. It's more of an historic landmark than actual living, breathing town. Beautiful, but don't touch anything.

In town the whole group of us got our pictures taken at the ATC to mark the psychological halfway mark (the physical halfway point would be fast approaching in Pennsylvania). The pictures are then put into a yearbook for posterity. A state Senator came down to the ATC building to commemorate something not important and offer a rote self-congratulatory speech. My best guess is that the good Senator had too many belts of scotch the night before because he looked a little groggy and disinterested. The people there at the ATC were really nice and they showed a film on the AT, which I really enjoyed, and they opened up a Q&A while us hikers answered questions about the trail. The whole thing was a lot of fun.

When we finally left town we dragged slowly through Maryland and met Rock Puncher and Bear Jew for the first time. We had a faster pace than them, since they just started out of Harper's Ferry by way of DC, but we were being lazy and Spam was complaining about some illness that we assumed he was faking. So we held up even more and stayed at a hostel so Spam could go to the clinic. Turns out Spam had Lyme's disease. As far as we know he didn't lie about the test results. The good news was that we got to hike with Bear Jew and Rock Puncher a little longer.

Given Spam's predicament we had to move on to make miles while he sorted things out. We finally crawled across the Maryland state line and into Pennsylvania. We participated in the half-gallon challenge (eat a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting). I incorrectly chose Neopolitan. Sensei did Cookies and Cream (much wiser). The Corsican chose Moose Tracks, having something like 60% more calories than ours, and still managed to beat us by finishing around 30 minutes. It was a phenomenal display. Sensei finished right after and I dragged on to 1 hour.

Southern Pennsylvania was beautiful. The rest of Pennsylvania was all rain and rocks.

There is a famous town on the trail called Duncannon and even more famous hotel, called the Doyle in that town. The Doyle is the kind of place you take a hooker to celebrate scoring a bunch of crystal meth. And I'm pretty certain that's what 95% of the clientele was doing there. We met Squash there and shared a dilapidated room with him and The Corsican.

In Port Clinton, PA we finally reunited with Spam and took a day of rest. We took a little side trip to Cabela's, an outdoor store the size of a double-decker super Walmart. In the camping section Sensei and I noted how not a single thing there was useful for our backpacking adventure in the Appalachians. Everything there was for people camping out of a truck.

We felt cocky and superior. We were real woodsman. We laughed condescendingly at everyone. God, I loved the reassurance of being aloof, detached and rugged. We'll be done with this in no time.

A mere 971.7 miles in the horizon. A pittance.