Just a couple of photos

Here are just a couple of the photos from our trip/reunion this past week. This was my first view of Katahdin, taken while driving into Baxter State Park on Wednesday morning... Here's where Keychain signed in for his final hike... (down in the yellow smudge) This is what Katahdin looked like from the closest campground, where I waited with several other families for our thru-hikers to come down. Creeper's dad had binoculars, and we could actually see the a little of the festivities on the top of the mountain. And here was my first view of him coming down off the mountain with some of the 60-something hikers that summited that afternoon... More to come... stay tuned!

I-95 is lovely this time of year.

Hello from my hotel here in Portland, about 4.5 hours from the trail, and from our favorite hiker. I got a call from Shawn this morning as I was preparing to leave, who reported that the trail to the summit was still closed ... so now there are even more hikers backed up in Abol Bridge waiting to finish! Hopefully tomorrow morning will be an all-clear and he and Zen (and many others) can hike on up. Either way, I'll be at Baxter State Park around 1 or 2 tomorrow, to either wait for him to come down off the mountain, or hang out with him in Millinocket until he can go up it. Hopefully the former, so we can go to Canada! The drive up from Philly was nice and uneventful - excellent leaf peeping along the way, and I was able to get a Connecticut and Massachusetts keychain to complete Shawn's set, courtesy of I-95 and I-90 rest stops along the way. I'll let everyone know tomorrow if the mountain is open or not, so stay tuned ... and keep your fingers crossed!!!! I know they all are anxious to finish. PS... on a total aside, after I picked up the car last night, I stopped by the Old Navy in South Philly, and saw Jay from season 1 of Project Runway. Random.

Text from the Trail

I received this text message this morning, from Keychain:

"@L.namahkanta. snow on k. closed for past 2 days says rumor!"

Translated, this means “I am at Lake Namahkanta. There is snow on Katahdin, and supposedly the mountain has been closed for the past 2 days.”

I sent him a message back to see when he thought he’d summit given the weather. Luckily, I got a call back! Apparently Zen got some kind of floatplane ride (?!) and saw a lot of snow on the mountain, and rumors from ahead of them indicate that people were stacking up at the park, waiting to summit. It did snow on them a few nights ago, but today is a gorgeous day in Maine, and they figure the folks that have been waiting to hike up will likely go today, leaving less of a crowd for them, and they still plan to summit on Wednesday.

So, the plan to leave Philly tomorrow is still intact, and I’ll hopefully be with Shawn on Wednesday!

You Know He's Almost Done When...

…the kitchen table has been reclaimed, and all the extra food your hiker didn’t need fits in one small bag. I haven't seen the top of this table in 6 months, and its quite exciting!

Just to keep everyone up to date, the "Getting Shawn from the Trail Plan" is to leave from Philadelphia on Tuesday, make the long drive up, and meet him sometime Wednesday when he is back from the Summit. I spoke with Shawn in Monson at the beginning of the week, and probably won’t hear from him again until I see him at the base of Katahdin since he’s going through the 100 mile wilderness as we speak. We picked out a meeting place at the base of the mountain, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll see him there! We will make calls to families as soon as we can, and I’m sure he’ll want to post about his summit here as well.

After the big reunion, Keychain and I (and Zen, too) are planning a short trip further north to see where the Appalachian Mountains end in Canada. We’ll be in touch with plans for a welcome home gathering (or two) with photos from his Thru-Hike once Shawn settles back into “real” life. Be glad I’m donating the extra food, or else the entire menu could consist of dried milk, tuna, and ramen noodles…

BIG WRITE UP PART 2 - NORTHERN VIRGINIA

Back for a second post. So, naked hiking day completed, we had a nice stayover in Luray, VA with Elizabeth, Johnny Thunder and his girlfriend Theresa. The next day, I got my Virginia keychain, said goodbye to the ladies at Skyland Lodge. As Johnny and I entered the woods to get back on the trail, we came across Orion, and then the skies opened up. Luckily, Skyland's tap room was not far and we had a place to wait out a huge thunderstorm with marble-sized hail - while enjoying a few beers! By the way, those of you who are sick of Yeungling might find it curious that it's sold all over the South as a premium domestic beer. Finally got back on the trail and ended up stealth camping near a troop of boy scouts at a picnic pavilion. The next few days were more of the same, with easy trails, afternoon storms, and Skyline Drive becoming more and more annoying. Most of the thruhikers by this point were over Shenandoah NP - it is amazingly crowded on weekends, and having Skyline Drive so close to the trail really ruins any attempt at a quiet wilderness experience. In fact, the original creator of the trail severed his relationship with the Appalachian Trail Conference when they agreed in the 1930s to move the trail to make room for Skyline Drive (yes, the AT is older). He felt having a big tourist road right next to the trail would ruin the AT, while the ATC leadership felt it would give more people access to the trail. Both were right. If you are really interested in what happens when roads are brought through are National Parks, I suggest reading Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" which is about his time in Arches NP in Utah in the 60's when a road was brought thru, completely changing how visitors experience the park. Anyway, most of us were glad to be out of the park simply because it means only 40 miles until West Virginia. As a buddy Wavepool says, "she's a moody lady, Virginia, tough to get along with. And despite trying a long term relationship with her, I'm ready for a brief fling with her sister." And what a last 40 miles. Very boring trail, lots of rocks, no views, completely overgrown and seemingly forgotten in parts, no good swimming holes. And to top it off, the "rollercoaster" - a 13 mile section where the trail climbs up and down over 13 viewless and rocky ridges. I had gotten only 10 miles into it and was in a foul mood when I came across Orion, sitting with a big smile on his face and playing his mandolin. "Keychain, so glad to see you - get ready to change your journey." Orion had been to Linden, VA to pick up a mail drop, and there he met a party of guys celebrating a friend's release from jail. A guy named Tom called Orion over, and in short time offered him the use of his canoe to paddle down 15 miles of the Shenandoah River. He just wanted gas money to come pick it up. So Orion went looking for me, and several hitches later, we had beer and a camping spot on the river where Tom would drop the canoe the next morning. True to his word, at 7:30am the next day there was Tom and his canoe, and there we were, "aqua-blazing" past the Roller Coaster, skipping over rapids, getting tan, drinking beers, and enjoying the fun the river provided. And the river kept on providing. Two hours into the journey, we found a dented aluminum canoe, abandoned on a mud island. It floated well, with only a slow leak, and so we commandeered her and gave her the trail name "Proud Mary." We caught up with Tom at the end of the 15 miles, returned him his canoe, and told him we were heading on towards Harpers Ferry in our own. So, Orion and I set off in Proud Mary for another 15 miles, stopping overnight at a hidden riverside camping spot that had a picnic table and clean-running stream for water and cleaning up. The only hitch was that our map showed five "falls" on the river below where we gave Tom his canoe back, and no one we talked to could tell us anything about those falls. So on the second day, we strapped everything tightly to the Proud Mary, and headed into the unknown. Luckily, the "falls" turned out to be minor Class 2 rapids, but they caused excitement and were fun to run. We ened up at Route 9 in West Virginia, unable to get around a power plant dam. One call to Tom, and he came to return us to the trail, taking the Proud Mary as payment. What a guy! What a way to leave Virginia! What an addition to this journey! So Orion and I did end up walking the last 6 miles into Harpers Ferry, West Virginia - our 5th state, our 1,000th mile, our halfway point in time, our near-halfway point in mileage. When we arrived this morning, we promptly got our photos taken at the Appalachian Trail Conference's headquarters for their record books. We are the 460th and 461st thru-hiker to pass through this year, out of an estimated 1,200 that started in Georgia. A proud moment indeed! I plan on staying overnight, but accomodations are tight since the major hiker hotel is closed for renovations. There is talk of doing all of Maryland's 40 miles in one day tomorrow, but I'm not sure I want to push that hard - plus I need to find a town in Maryland that sells keychains. We shall see. However, I can say that the next time I am able to blog, I will be in my homestate of Pennsylvania!

BIG WRITE UP PART 1 - SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK

Hello to all the faithful readers! I am sitting in the public library here in Harper's Ferry, WV - the halfway point (at least psychologically if not physically) of the AT! Since I didn't make any stops since seeing Elizabeth, I haven't had a chance to blog, and have a lot to tell you all. So I will try to write a couple entries - this one will concern Shenandoah National Park. After I last wrote, I left Waynesboro and my buddy Orion and I entered the Shennies, which I will describe as a thru-hiker's vacationland. The trails in the Park are nicely maintained and not very steeply graded - a decent hike for any weekender, but a breeze for anyone who's already walked 900 miles. Additionally, there are 4 waysides along the route that serve food and delicious blackberry milkshakes, as well as a few campgrounds and other places to get water and food and showers. Not very backcountry at all - I didn't have to filter my water at all. Not to mention, Skyline Drive is parallel and close to the AT at all times, so whenever you feel like blue-blazing around some pointless climb, you may. Orion and I were able to punch out a 27.3 mile day the first day, and I followed it with an 18 mile day in an effort to meet Elizabeth on time. Orion would've come with me, but fell in with a couple Germans who flew to DC and bought a cheap van and are traveling across the country, with Shen. NP as their first stop. They were feeding and drinking Orion up pretty well, so he was slow for day 2. I admit, I did blue-blaze on Skyline Drive a few times for these days, but only for a total of 9 miles. The road is simply too boring, and as the weekend drew near, the amount of traffic grew to be too much to want to walk beside. However, good things happen on the road - we hit two instances of trail magic when a thruhiker's mom gave us chicken strips and soda, and a fellow thruhiker named Bojangles, who is leaving the trail, picked us up in his pickup truck for an impromptu party at an overlook. It was this last trail magic event that Elizabeth found me at, and it was a sweet reunion indeed. Other hikers who weren't there said they heard about the lovey lovey going on. Unfortunately, the party reunion caused me to skip a 17 mile section of the trail that I didn't go back and do. This is a break of one of the three cardinal rules I have for myself - always walk in a continuous manner (no skipping), always walk north, and always carry my pack. Elizabeth's visit was a worthwhile break of the rules though, and as another hiker Burrass tells me, "at the end of the day we'll get a patch that says "2,000 miler" but since the trail is 2,176 miles, I figure we got a hundred seventy-six miles to play with." I broke my second rule with Elizabeth as we walked 8 miles south from Skyland Lodge to Big Meadows Lodge on Saturday. I should also explain that this day was the Summer Solstice - the longest daylight of the year and otherwise known as NAKED HIKING DAY. Well, I'm not one to break from trail tradition, even if it's on a Saturday in the most crowded section of Shenandoah National Park. Let's just say my entry in the trail register at the lunch shelter read something like, "Keychain is in ur woods, observing the solstice. Lady E saw a bare."

A Trip to the Trail

I am back in Philadelphia after a wonderful weekend in Shenandoah National Park with Shawn. Teresa and I drove down on Friday afternoon, and as their location changed from hour to hour (“we’ll see you in Elkton,” became “there’s nothing in Elkton… meet us in the park,” became “we’re at mile marker 65 having a party on the side of the road with some other hikers.” Yep, that’s how they roll on the trail…) Just before we pulled onto Skyline Drive, a small black bear ran in front of us … this means I saw a bear on the trail before Shawn, which he finds incredible unfair.

We pulled into the wayside off Skyline Drive, and words can’t describe how wonderful it was to see him across the parking lot. I almost forgot to put the car in park! It was just amazing. We got to meet a bunch of hikers, and finally can put some names with the photos I’ve seen and stories I’ve been hearing.

It turns out that shortly after Shawn wrote the previous post at 6:45 am, he hiked 27 miles (!), his personal best day, and then 18 miles the next day, in order to make it up to where we were meeting them in time.

We stayed at Big Meadows Lodge in the park on Friday night and listened to some live music at the Tap Room that night. We hiked an 8-mile stretch of the trail on Saturday afternoon – I had a full AT experience (except for the 30 pound pack) as it started to rain on us as we were nearing the end of the trip. We were able to get a ride with a park ranger back to Skylands to meet Teresa and Johnny Thunder, and then we all headed down into Luray, VA, for dinner and an overnight in town and off trail.

Sunday we spent some time hunting down a VA keychain for Shawn’s pack and some chicken sandwiches for Johnny Thunder. It was impressive and maybe a little gross to see the two of them polish off 5 KFC snacker sandwiches. Each.

Overall, a great, great trip. The last 2 ½ months have been rough, but this weekend made it all worth it. Luckily it won’t be that long again – believe it or not, they should be entering Pennsylvania in the next few weeks!!!