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[at-l] Sophophile ,Fireball,our Trek to B.Springs
Just got back from a 9 day backpacking stint from Harpers Ferry to Boiling
Springs to find Sophophile,Micah, and Fireball camped out at the Fox Hill
Inn! It was neat to finally put some faces with names! They seem to be
doing fine - dropped off Sophophile at Dickey Gap for her trek to Mt. Rogers
Hdqtrs today - perfect, sunny day. Fireball is heading in to Marion to take
a few days off the trail to visit a friend and then will be back on. Guess
we missed Poombah who looked like she was here for a few days around the
22nd of April. She must be cruising.
Enjoyed our hike to Boiling Springs despite the rocks, although our goal of
Duncannon was missed due to both of us finally succumbing to infected
blisters - ibuprofen wasn't even enough to overcome that. Lot of factors
there - boots to small (feet must have grown some from our hike of '95),
rocks, who knows what else - needless to say, major blisters on bottom of
heels, big toes and balls of the feet - didn't have the time to take a day
off to calm them down, so they finally stopped us in our tracks. Hopefully
we'll be back on the trail again shortly after Memorial Day to continue our
trek towards Delaware Water Gap.
Didn't meet too many people on the trail - still a bit early. Did spend
about 3 days with Popocat who had started at Springer back in January -
think he was glad to have some company for a while. Did find that a few
parks were closed (Penmar), Caledonia, this early in the season - had
expected to be able to get water at Penmar - fortunately a neighbor brought
us some - just a tip to Wingfoot - it would be helpful to give the actual
opening dates of these parks, especially now that more and more hikers are
starting early. The store was open next to Ironmasters at Pine Grove Furnace
so it was nice to chow down on some burgers after another day in the rain
(rained on us 7 out of the 9 days - even hailing on us as we reached Penmar!)
Slashed my thermarest on a rock despite having read warnings here on the
lists about carrying it in a stuff sack and of course this is the one time I
didn't carry a repair kit - figures,huh? Wierd - hiked most of the trail in
'95 - never put it in a stuff sack,never had a problem, but always had the
repair kit - guess someone is trying to tell me something?
Had some good trail magic at Penmar - the neighbor who brought us water took
us down to Decker's Supermarket which by the way is only a couple of blocks
from the P.O. in Cascade where we had our mail drop, so if you plan to go to
Decker's, thought you might be interested to know the post office is just
down the block. Caught a ride back from the P.O with a female army NCO from
Ft. Ritchie (which is getting ready to close in the next year or so and will
kill the town of Cascade) - she took us all the way back to Penmar Park.
Saved us 1.6 miles on the road. Go Army!
Enjoyed the double shelters in PA, though some need repair. The new one at
Quarry Gap is really cool. Liked the setting of the shelters at Antietam and
Tumbling Run. Appreciated this double shelter system when we were at Rocky
Mtn. Shelters and had 3 good ol' boys come crashing in after midnight and
spent the next twenty minutes crashing around in the woods to gather
firewood so they could have a bonfire and keep us up half the night.
Needless to say, we made a hell of a lot of noise when we got up in the morning!
Mark and Janet Holmes-Innkeepers- Fox Hill Inn,Troutdale,VA(1-800-874-3313)
GA-NH '95 MD,PA+NH-ME '97
http://members.tripod.com/~Mark_Holmes/AT.html
Provider of shuttles in SW VA
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