Day 18: Pushing…

Summary

May 13th 

Yellow Spring Campsite to William Penn Shelter

NOBO mile #1189.6

Tolmann miles today 18

Tolmann’s total miles 165.9

Woke up to the rain continuing to come down; I lay in my nice, dry, warm hammock as the birds began their morning improvisation. I really didn’t want to get up and begin this wet, wet day. 

But I also wanted to try to get to Rausch Gap shelter, and maybe cook up my breakfast there. So I got up and began the interesting task of packing up while trying to keep the dry items dry. It takes a fair amount of time to take things down and pack them up in the correct order, but I was off and hiking by 8am.

I tried my rain gear set up with the umbrella to keep my head and hat dry, my raincoat (as a windbreaker) and a rain kilt. The umbrella was more of a pain than a help, sliding on low hanging branches and occasionally catching, but it keeps the hat from getting saturated and dripping. 

I made fantastic time getting to the shelter; less than 2 hours to go around 5 miles. As I made my way up the side trail, Meeko was coming towards me. I chatted briefly with her, letting her know I was on trail, and made tentative plans to meet up at William Penn Shelter another 14 miles up the trail.

PK (the hiker I camped next to at Yellow Springs) caught up to me at the shelter, and we chatted for a few minutes. Here I made my biggest mistake of the day; I didn’t make breakfast. I left to tackle what would be an 18 mile day.  

I passed Blueberry, who was just getting up camped in his tent beside the trail. 

After a fair amount of walking through the woods, the trail went through the Swatara Park.  Seemed to me that the lichen had learned some form of pictographic communication. 

There was a large tree down across the rushing creek with two planks across a gap to the roots. One had to balance their way across. Balance is on the challenging side for me, so I crept across. As I got off I found PK had caught up with me. I guess I freaked him out some, but he pretty well nailed it himself…

We each took a minute to collect ourselves (I ate a peanut butter packet; see the theme here? I wasn’t really fueling up). 

PK was off and running again before I was ready to leave. 

I crossed maybe a half mile of meadowlands, during a brief respite from the rain. 

 Then back into the woods. 

The trail crosses under 81 after following a bike path; there was a triathlon (running, kayaking, and biking) there, and a volunteer gave Blueberry (who had caught up to me) and I some water. I was really dragging at this point, and the volunteer told us that we had quite a climb ahead up to the top of the ridge. I was really feeling like the trail was pulling me backwards, obstacle after obstacle; even grabbing my trekking poles.

So, with Blueberry chasing his own mileage milestone (20 miles) and already out of sight, I lumbered up the incline back to the trail. There was a tree down across the trail, and it was obvious that folks had gone up the embankment to get around it, so I followed suit. 

That’s when I fell. I came down on my left shin and elbow before turtling in the middle of the path. It should have been clear to me that I was running beyond my limits at this point, but I unbelted myself from the pack and got up, went through the “saddle-up” procedure, and continued lumbering up the trail. The rest of the day’s efforts shall remain unspoken, as they would include language unfit civilized discourse. 

I got to the shelter around 5:30. No Meeko, no Tilly and Hops. They had left an hour before to go to the 501 Shelter some 3.6 miles on. And no wonder. There was no privy, no bear box, and the shelter, touted to hold 16, might have room for 10. We had 8. If the others had stayed, there’d have been no room. 

As it was, PK was there (and he collected 2 liters of water from the spring for me; thanks PK!!!) and so was Chainsaw (you know him as Chris from the Raven Rock episode, language very much cleaned up). So I had company. There were also two college guys up for an overnight stay with a cast iron skillet and grill and fresh vegetables (no sharing, but I had my own fare). And finally three other thru-hikers (started at Springer in Georgia) showed up later.

I was soaking sopping wet, so opted to sleep in the shelter, on my “no pad” (3/8 inch foam pad). I dried off, ate a crunchy alfredo and shells Knorr pasta side, and called it a day. 

Time to stop chasing my tramily, the big miles are too much at this point.