Hiker feed. July 3

July 3, 2011

Start:  1083.8 Birch Run shelter
End:   1111.4 Cumberland Valley, 100 yds before farms.
Total:   27.6 miles.

Was there a storm last night?  I have the image of lightening and think I heard rain last night.  I slept like a rock.  Having a nice huge comfortable shelter to yourself is really a luxury.  I even sleep in, until seven.  It takes me until eight fifteen to finally leave.  I'm out of caffeine, and that is really bad.  I thought I had more Stay Awakes when I gave three away yesterday morning to my fellow on trail partiers.  Not happy fun times. 

The trail goes fast, though it is quite rocky.  I am still in a section maintained by the PATC.  I believe that I am finally understanding their approach to trail maintenance.  On trail they do extremely little to maintain the Appalachian trail, resulting in it becoming a rock patch.  However, they invest a great amount of time building and maintaining a series of remarkably nice shelters and other near trail amenities, today I will pass an Appalachian trail museum they run.  They also rent out cabins to groups near the trail.  I understand this concept, for I was in the resort biz for a while.  The PATC is a nonprofit organization, that can pay its officials whatever it wants.  Trail maintenance is profiles, actually costing a great deal.  If funds are invested into maintaining vacation rental properties and other income generating businesses like museums, then salaries can go up for the officials, and volunteers who can't make it deep into the woods can physically see the rewards of their efforts.  Plus they have nice shelters.

It's only ten when I cross a road and written in chalk on the ground is a message saying, "Hikers!  Free PATC BBQ at Pine Grove Furnace State Park Sunday July 3, 11 AM."  Now that's. good way to get a hikers attention.  I decide I should go since its on trail and free.  These PATC people are starting to grow on me. 

I arrive at the park and say hey to a group of a dozen hikers sitting on the porch of the general store eating ice cream.  The store is home to the half gallon challenge, a food challenge involving ice cream.  Though its not free if you eat it all.  I ask where's the bbq, they point, I then say something like, "why should I hang out with all you dirty hiker trash when there is free food over there."  Then head to the bbq. 

There are people lining up for food and one angry hiker is saying that these guys are all piers and the food isn't free, that we need to teach people about the trail or something in an hour.  This unnerved me so I walk away and see a PATC shifted guy who I ask, and he says, "cool you saw my sign, eat up, please help yourself."  So I do.  I eat way to much.  In an hour though a lady comes by and says, are you all ready to tell your Appalachian trail stories to the twenty hikers there.  So the angry hiker was right, the food wasn't free.  It was for me, as I am already packing up to leave.  I thank people for the food and bust outta Dodge.

The furnace the park is named after, is a huge smelter, several stories tall and made of local stone.  There are hundreds of people here, at the park celebrating the holiday weekend.  I'm on a bike path for a few miles, and quickly come to a lake and another large recreation area with families partying.  The lake would be nice to jump in, but its a little crowded.

I walk past with the goal of making it to Boiling Springs, Pa. tonight.  There is nothing there that I need, it ust seems like a good mileage destination.  Approaching Boiling Springs though, I see that there is no camping from 3.5 miles south of town until 14 miles south of town, the whole Cumberland valley.  There is one designated campsite which I assume will be surrounded by farms, in a field, a half mile south of town.  I don't want to stay there, so I set up in the forest just before the farms of the Cumberland Valley begin. 

Bored and looking ahead in my data book, I see that there is a six dollar breakfast buffet four tenths of a mile off AT leaving Boiling Springs.  I decide to hit that.  These buffet ate actually saving me money.  I get disgustingly full for eight dollars, then don't eat my more expensive trail food for most of the remainder of the day.

I can hear the sounds of two large fire works displays as I eat dinner in my tent filtering through the forest from opposite directions in the Cumberland Valley.