Miles: 1190.0 | An overtired morning leads to a painful run-in with a fallen tree, testing my patience and morale early in the day. The miles improve as we push through flooded trail, relentless bugs, and highway noise, finally rewarded by shockingly clear, delicious water at old diversion wells. Reunions with familiar hikers and a strong final push bring us to William Penn Shelter, where the heat finally breaks and deep sleep comes easily.
I woke up late and I didn't sleep well the night before because of the deer. I got up, grumpy and overtired. We immediately packed and walked at a good clip. I physically didn't feel like I had much energy but Miles did. I just hung on to his pace as hard as I could. The rocks weren't so bad this day and the trail kind of reminded me of parts of Virginia. It was relatively flat with gradual climbs and descents.
In the morning sometime, I fell back from Miles a little bit but I still tried to keep his pace. I got deep into my thoughts and I was wearing my pink, brimmed running hat to keep the sun out of my eyes. Out of no where I felt a hard crack on my head. It hurt and I instantly closed my eyes and felt myself fall backwards. Something had hit me in the head. I looked up, already bawling my eyes out, realizing that I had walked into a tree than had fallen across the trail. If I had just side stepped, like Miles had, I would have completely been able to walk under it. I just hadn't seen it because the brim of my hat was in my way and I was so lost in my thoughts.
I was stewing in this overtired negativity because I was kind of angry about the deer and not getting enough sleep even though the campsite seemed so perfect. I was thinking about how much time we had left and all of the miles ahead of us. I was a bit homesick, too. I just wanted to go back to bed and start over; but that wasn't really an option.
I cried harder than I probably needed to. It hurt but it really wasn't that bad. Miles sat with me and made sure I was okay. He couldn't help from chuckling a little bit at how ridiculous it was. And it really was kind of ridiculous. I mean who, besides someone named Life Alert, walks into a tree not once, but twice in one thru-hike?
We got up and got going again after that. Later, we crossed a huge flood on trail through a beaver dam.
The ATC, we had heard, couldn't decide how to fix the flood and the problem had only existed for about a week when we passed through (the flood is still there an a solution hasn't been reached, though, two months later...).
Some said they should get horses in there and pull the dam down. Some said it was nature and they should let it be, reroute the trail around it if need be. Others suggested we build up rock or plank trails over it.
Either way, us thru-hikers all had to wade through the nasty water for now. We took off our sneakers and put on our camp shoes: Miles his thrift store flip flops and me my Crocs. I crossed first and made it, almost losing a shoe to the mud. Miles crossed second and his flip flops kept getting stuck in the mud under the water. You could hear the mud suctioning them off of his feet. We made it across into the most mosquito infested territory on the other side.
In the cloud of bugs we sprayed ourselves down with Picardin bug spray. The bugs still landed on us but didn't bite. On my sunburned skin the spray burned a little bit, though. I didn't like using chemical bug sprays like DEET and Picardin but it seemed like nothing else worked. Honestly, it seemed like those toxic chemicals didn't even work. Regardless, the spray gave us enough of a reprieve to dig out a small PakTowl and dry off our feet.
We both put our shoes on while standing up because there was so much mud we couldn't sit down. I somehow came out of it with at least a dozen bug bites... We got out of there as quickly as we could and headed up the trail.
In the heat of the afternoon we watched a few runners fly by with their dogs. Their wet, muddy sneakers seemed like no bother to them. I thought about the dry homes and showers and warm beds they got to go home to and I was kind of jealous. I suffered in the heat and salt chafe reared its ugly head on my back in the form of pin-prick-like itchy stings.
At some point we came to these very cool diversion wells (a sort of large scale water filter if you will) near the trail. These huge metal vats with metal grates on top were filled with limestone gravel to filter water that was poisoned by coal mine drainage that used to flood these hills back in the day. We filled our dirty water bags (we checked the guide and the local info board to ensure drinkability) and sat down by the wells.
I leaned against my pack in the heat of the day and put my cool water bottle against my face. The water was the best I'd tasted in at least a week. It was the first water we had gotten in the state that wasn't yellow. It was amazing. We stayed there and drank multiple liters of water each. By the time we left we were both bloated and had water sloshing around in our bellies.
I laid under the shade of the yellow birch trees and looked at the way the sun shone down through the leaves of tree. The bright green light it created washed over us. It felt so good. I was trying to stop more and notice the beauty around me. The serenity and the security of being around good water was so nice. We basked in the light and drank in the water for a good hour.
I took a sip of my warm water, bit into a bar, and we kept walking. We went through a strange state park, crossed two highways, went over an interesting bridge, over a pipeline construction zone, and back into the woods.
We climbed a hill and descended after that. When we reached a small river at the bottom of the climb. The runners we had seen earlier flew past us again on their way down and immediately jumped into the shallow river. They looked so cool. I wanted to lay in that river of yellowish Pennsylvania water but I also didn't want to wait for my clothes to dry or deal with the chafe of wet clothes.
After being around all of the noise of highways for a good portion of our day it felt amazing to get back into the quiet woods. The trees filtered out a good portion of the noise. We climbed up one last climb to a ridgeline. At the top we ate Goober (peanut butter and jelly in one jar) by the spoonful to fuel us to camp. I lead us to camp at a fast pace after that. The gnats started getting bad as the sun started getting low and I couldn't seem to get them to stop flying at my eyes. I couldn't reach my bug net and we only had a few miles left anyway.
I booked it across the ridge to camp and we made it over 3 miles in just over an hour. When we arrived, D-Squared and Crazy Brit were the first hikers we saw. They told us there was a spring here for the water source and that it was really good. I was so happy to hear it after such a hot day. Good water can be the difference between feeling on top of your game and being dehydrated and sluggish.
We set up our tents and noticed a familiar face nearby: Hippie King! We hadn't seen him since Virginia!! He had been going southbound and we never thought we'd see him again. Turns out he decided he really like thru-hiking more than he thought and he had decided to spend more time out on trail so he took a bus up to New York to get more trail!
We talked to him briefly and then got water. I boiled my water and started dinner while I set up my tent next to Miles'. I realized I was low on dinner food. I hadn't resupplied enough, I guess. I had planned wrong. Thankfully, Miles shared some of his extra dinner food with me and I traded him some snacks. We just needed to make it to Port Clinton for resupply the day after next. I ate dinner alone in my tent and fell asleep early. It was so hot I didn't even bother getting in my sleeping bag or even taking it out of my pack. Just the feeling of the nylon fabric against my legs was gross. I slept hard that night.