TRAIL DAY 111
Fri, June 10, 2016 It would be a 174-picture day, many of civil war monuments and information boards that I would read later back home.
Before leaving Ed Garvey Shelter, I noted an old, locked privy and its new replacement which seemed large enough for a wheelchair but with steep stairs up to it. Farther north I would encounter privies that had to be handicap accessible. Apparently, according to some laws or regulations, if a structure has 4 walls, it must be handicap accessible. Some got around the extra cost by having only 3 walls which didn’t really seem much of a departure from human compassion since I found myself wondering how a wheelchair-bound person was going to make it to any one of the privies in question.
The replacement privy also had good instructions headed: HOW TO POOP IN THE WOODS. Essential information if you’re not naturally inclined to primitive living.
On my return from the privy, the sun was rising over the shelter’s porch while the benched hiker slept on. It was 6:00 a.m. and we would get an early start. Some hikers made a habit of hitting the trail a lot earlier.
It was a sunny day and the trail profile was broadly undulating with several challenging blips. Soon the trail passed right through Gathland State Park commemorating many events of September 1862. I met a couple who had driven here. They were taken by my adventure with my companion. We exchanged pictures of each other.
As always, Theo and I were alone and, on a calm day, the canopy was quietly taking in the sun’s energy overhead. When I observed a jet’s contrails blowing southward, I paused and tried to capture the scene on video wanting to tap into the beauty of that moment of contrasts in earth and sky.
Far overhead
The leaves of the canopy
Take in life from above
While winds aloft
Blow contrails to the south
The lazy, late spring day was restful and, over lunch at the Rocky Run Shelters, I ate and napped, stretched out on the floor of the new shelter. I even got my pad out which I did at least a couple of times on the trail when sleep beckoned mid-day.
The new shelter was pristine and the old one, with a stream running by, looked like it could have housed civil war soldiers many years before.
The afternoon took us to Historic Wise’s Field, scene of the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, 1862. Long straight sections of trail led northward from there. Mother Nature made an urgent call which I answered some distance off the trial without much cover as hikers passed by unawares. Soon after this precarious event, I came to a campground with indoor toilets.
After the campground, there was a short climb to US Alt 40 where there was a nice country restaurant a short distance to the west. Boonsboro, Maryland was 2.5 miles farther on.
Across the street was the Dahlgren Chapel built around 1881, the year my prep school was founded by the evangelist, Dwight L. Moody. The trail continued behind the Chapel, through woods, past a deer and came eventually to Washington Monument State Park, “Home of the first completed monument to honor George Washington.”
I stopped for water at a fountain near a pavilion and then began the steady climb to the monument along a gravel trail marked by signs noting significant events in the life of this founding father. En route, I ran into a couple meandering up the path and we got chatting by the sign reading 1759: MARRIES MARTHA CUSTIS; 1758-74: MEMBER, VA HOUSE OF BURGESSES. The marriage was 200 years before I graduated from Mount Hermon prep school, significant only to me, of course.
I moved on a little faster than the sauntering couple. It was 6:05 p.m. and I had 3.5 miles to go to my destination. The trail left the path to the monument just east of it and I was tempted to carry on northbound but along came the couple and the fellow told me the monument was really worth seeing. Up I went.
His companion was a little quiet until we saw each other at the top of the monument where we got to chatting again. The fellow asked my name and I told him Sojo – to which he responded: “You just had a birthday!”
Go ahead. Throw me off the tower! What the bleep is going on? Is the AT just one small village where everyone knows everyone else? I think that might be the gist of it. The AT is probably the longest little village on the planet.
Small or not – I was still learning the just-a-village nature of the AT – so I asked, “How did you know that?”
He said that he had just finished a couple of weeks of hiking the AT farther south and “A fella hiking with his son, Pops and the Kid, told me.”
I wondered how it came to pass that Pops and the Kid remembered me but more I wondered what prompted them to tell this section hiker about me. Just calk it up as another “Trail Mystery” or perhaps a “Trail Miracle” to add another term to AT lore.
I was back headed northbound by 6:30 p.m. and crossing US 70 which my wife and I had driven many times when we lived in Maryland from 1987 to 1994. It is a beautiful stretch of road running East-West across the northern tier of the state.
Across the very expensive and wonderful footbridge, the trail veered left but I got off it by accident for a short stint. I turned around and found my way again up a short but steep climb to the Pine Knob Shelter (0.1W). Along the .1 mile to the shelter, there were plenty of campsites. Boy Scouts had passed me as I was getting lost and, once oriented, I ended up back on their tracks. They were already set up at a large campsite by the side trail to the shelter where a father-type and three 20-somethings were just hanging out. They had their respective locations pegged out in the shelter and were sitting around the table outside. They were from the midwest.
I set my pack on the ground to the right of the shelter opening and got out my food stuff. Water was past the table a short distance to a piped spring. I called Theo to join me so he could tank up and filled my bottles and pouch without filtering. Back at the table, I set up at the end near a drop-off but managed. We all chatted and got acquainted. My dinner companions were vigorous and kind folk. I was happy to share the shelter with them – and, of course, they loved Theo.
Day #111 Ed Garvey Shelter > Pine Knob Shelter 16.6 miles