Day 65 - Tuesday, August 16

Linda

It only took us 35 minutes to get up and out this morning - that's almost a record. We were hiking by 6:50 am. We trudged up over rocky Bake Oven Knob and Baer Rocks where we met Jimmy, Steve and John, three Northbounders who told us which way to go to get to the store on Highway 309. They also told us they'd done the 27 miles from Duncannon to Rausch Gap Shelter, and it wasn't too bad, rock wise. We decided to set our sights on being at Rausch Gap on Thursday night and in Duncannon on Friday night. Duncannon was our next mail stop. Passed by the Tripoli Shelter, then blitzed the next 2 miles to Hwy. 309 in a half hour. It was starting to sprinkle by then, so Ronald sat on the porch of the local bar and grill with the packs while I hitched 4 miles down to the Kemmerer General Store. I picked up honey, cheese and some breakfast items, as well as bananas and our old standard - root beer. I didn't have much trouble getting a ride either way, so it only took an hour even with repackaging and snacking.

The 4 miles up to Allentown Shelter was all on dirt roads, so we breezed on in there by 11:30. Not bad, 11 miles before noon. Mixed some of the honey I'd just bought with the peanut butter and had ourselves a real treat. We must remember to put that on our list of staples. The honey keeps the peanut butter from being dry, and the mixture makes a good quick energy boost. We rested there for about an hour, then headed on. The next section was mostly woods and roads with only a few rocky sections. Found water at Dan's Spring (surprise, surprise), then continued on past Dan's Pulpit where we couldn't see anything but clouds. Made it down Hawk Mountain to the road at Eckville by 3:40, then took a break and talked to a couple guys there until 4:20. We were going up another 3 miles to Gold Spring to fix dinner, since we knew there would be water there. The trail through this section is mostly on a dirt road with a steady uphill grade. We were surprised to see brooks and springs with water in them running all along the trail. That's the most water we'd seen in weeks. Too bad it couldn't be spread out more along the entire trail, but we enjoyed it while it lasted.

We had walked the 3 miles to Gold Spring in just under an hour, which amazed us, since it was uphill. We had dinner there, then packed up and walked the very easy flat 2 miles to the Pinnacle. The weather had been threatening all day, and it was hard to tell what it might do, so we wanted to get the tent up as soon as possible. Found a non-rocky area and set up, then crawled in and ate our banana cream pudding we'd saved from dinner before going to sleep. Did a 24.3 mile day. Pretty good.

Ron

Got a good start this morning and were hiking before 7:00. The miles between Bake Oven Knob to Baer Rocks were fairly rocky with some smooth road in between. From the other side of Baer Rocks to Highway 309, the trail is on flat roads. At the highway we stopped for a while to resupply. Linda hitched into town to get more food for breakfast and lunches while I remained with the packs. We had to be in Duncannon by Saturday morning in order to get our mail drop. We knew from other hikers that the 25 miles from Rausch Gap Lean-to to Duncannon were not bad. But I figure we will really have to push to get there.

We blasted the four miles from the highway to Allentown Lean-to for lunch. After lunch we hiked on roads except for a two mile section that didn't slow us down too much. By 3:30 we had made 19 miles to Eckville. A short break energized us for the trip off to the Pinnacle. We hiked another three miles and stopped at Gold Spring to fix supper. We hiked for another hour after supper until we found a suitable place to set up the tent and make camp. The hot, humid and cloudy weather made the hiking today uncomfortable.

(24.3 Miles - 940.2 Total)